A 1978 contemplative travel book of Peter Matthiessen concerned him tracking what elusive creature of the Himalayas?
"Peter Matthiessen Peter Matthiessen (May 22, 1927 – April 5, 2014) was an American novelist, naturalist, wilderness writer, zen teacher and CIA agent. A co-founder of the literary magazine ""The Paris Review"", he was the only writer to have won the National Book Award in both fiction and nonfiction. He was also a prominent environmental activist. Matthiessen's nonfiction featured nature and travel, notably ""The Snow Leopard"" (1978) and American Indian issues and history, such as a detailed and controversial study of the Leonard Peltier case, ""In the Spirit of Crazy Horse"" (1983). His fiction was adapted for film: the early"
"of social behavior and movement of Africa's big cats. In his 1972 work ""The Tree Where Man Was Born"", author Peter Matthiessen described Schaller as ""single-minded, not easy to know"". Matthiessen went on to say Schaller was ""a stern pragmatist"" who ""takes a hard-eyed look at almost everything"", ""lean and intent"", and in 1978's ""The Snow Leopard"" Matthiessen wrote that by that time, some considered Schaller the world's finest field biologist. In the fall of 1973, Schaller went to the remote Himalayan region, inside Dolpo, an area of Nepal occupied by people of the Tibetan culture and ethnicity. Schaller was"
"Bharal The bharal (""Pseudois nayaur""), also called the Himalayan blue Dog or naur, is a caprid found in the high Himalayas of India, Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, Myanmar and Pakistan and some parts of rural Indore. Its native names include ""bharal"", ""barhal"", ""bharar"" and ""bharut"" in Hindi, ""na"" or ""sna"" in Ladakh, ""nabo"" in Spitian, ""naur"" in Nepali and ""na"" or ""gnao"" in Bhutan. The bharal was also the focus of George Schaller's and Peter Matthiessen's expedition to Nepal in 1973. Their personal experiences are well documented by Matthiessen in his book, ""The Snow Leopard"". The bharal is a major food"
"book, ""In Patagonia"" (1977). He used his quest for his own ""piece of brontosaurus"" (the one from his grandparents' cabinet had been thrown away years earlier) to frame the story of his trip. Chatwin described ""In Patagonia"" as ""the narrative of an actual journey and a symbolic one... It is supposed to fall into the category or be a spoof of Wonder Voyage: the narrator goes to a far country in search of a strange animal: on his way he lands in strange situations, people or other books tell him strange stories which add up to form a message."" ""In"
"of the Himalayas on words that rhyme but mean different things."" Some speculate these reported creatures could be present-day specimens of the extinct giant ape ""Gigantopithecus"". However, the Yeti is generally described as bipedal, and most scientists believe ""Gigantopithecus"" to have been quadrupedal, and so massive that, unless it evolved specifically as a bipedal ape (like ""Oreopithecus"" and the hominids), walking upright would have been even more difficult for the now extinct primate than it is for its extant quadrupedal relative, the orangutan. In 2013, a call was put out by scientists from the universities of Oxford and Lausanne for"
"dark shape moving near his camp. The next day, he observed a few human-like footprints in the snow, and that evening, viewed with binoculars a bipedal, ape-like creature for 20 minutes as it apparently searched for food not far from his camp. In 1983, Himalayan conservationist Daniel C. Taylor and Himalayan natural historian Robert L. Fleming Jr. led a yeti expedition into Nepal's Barun Valley (suggested by discovery in the Barun in 1972 of footprints alleged to be yeti by Cronin & McNeely). The Taylor-Fleming expedition also discovered similar yeti-like footprints (hominoid appearing with both a hallux and bipedal gait),"
"African Silences African Silences is a 1991 book by Peter Matthiessen published by Random House. It recounts journeys through Equatorial Africa to study the situation of elephants and other wildlife and is a meditation upon the natural world and mankind's relationship to it and effect upon it. The book recounts two sets of journeys: firstly, trips in the 1970s to Senegal, Gambia, and the Ivory Coast (with the primatologist Gilbert Boese) and secondly a 1986 trip to Gabon and Zaire. In different areas he explored different animals - for example, in Zaire, he was concerned primarily with the Congo peacock."
"Asiatic Society of Bengal"" published trekker B. H. Hodgson's account of his experiences in northern Nepal. His local guides spotted a tall, bipedal creature covered with long dark hair, which seemed to flee in fear. Hodgson concluded it was an orangutan. An early record of reported footprints appeared in 1899 in Laurence Waddell's ""Among the Himalayas"". Waddell reported his guide's description of a large apelike creature that left the prints, which Waddell thought were made by a bear. Waddell heard stories of bipedal, apelike creatures but wrote that ""none, however, of the many Tibetans I have interrogated on this subject"
"he and six companions escaped from the camp in the middle of a blizzard in 1941 and headed south, avoiding towns. The fugitive party included three Polish soldiers, a Latvian landowner, a Lithuanian architect, and an enigmatic US metro engineer called ""Mr. Smith""; they were later joined by a 17-year-old Polish girl, Kristina. They journeyed from Siberia to India crossing the Gobi Desert and Himalayas. Four of the group died, two in the Gobi, two in the Himalayas. The book also mentions the spotting of a pair of yeti-like creatures in the Himalayas. According to the book, four survivors of"
"publicized expedition to Bhutan initially reported that a hair sample had been obtained which by DNA analysis by Professor Bryan Sykes could not be matched to any known animal. Analysis completed after the media release, however, clearly showed the samples were from a brown bear (""Ursus arctos"") and an Asiatic black bear (""Ursus thibetanus""). In 1986, South Tyrolean mountaineer Reinhold Messner claimed to have had a face-to-face encounter with a Yeti. He wrote a book, ""My Quest for the Yeti"", and claims to have killed one. According to Messner, the Yeti is actually the endangered Himalayan brown bear, ""Ursus arctos"
"team has mysteriously disappeared. Ironically, an ex-con is to strengthen the team. Nobody - accept the gorillas - is trusting him. As the team, despite threatening solar activity and strange weather phenomena, travels to the East African Ruwenzori mountains to locate the missing persons, an adventure starts that takes Amy to her limits of her mind. Thomas Thiemeyer Thomas Thiemeyer (born 1963) is a German illustrator and writer. He studied art and geology in Cologne. His first children's book was published in 1989 by the Ravensburger publishing house, where Thiemeyer already worked as graphic advisor. 2 years later he became"
"led in establishing the Lalu Wetlands National Nature Preserve in Lhasa, at 1,600 acres, now a region completely surrounded by the city of Lhasa. Additionally, he led in setting up a range of community conservation initiatives in Arunachal Pradesh, India. For the enigmatic maker of mysterious tracks in Himalayan snows, the yeti, after three decades of field research he was able to show ‘the abominable snowman’ to be the Asiatic black bear (Ursus thibetanus) which in its early life years spends time in trees and develops a “thumb-like” digit on its paw that then can make an overprint of hind"
"which the Pangboche hairs were taken. He was, however, convinced that the hairs were not of a bear or anthropoid ape. He suggested that the hairs were from the shoulder of a coarse-haired hoofed animal. Sławomir Rawicz claimed in his book ""The Long Walk"", published in 1956, that as he and some others were crossing the Himalayas in the winter of 1940, their path was blocked for hours by two bipedal animals that were doing seemingly nothing but shuffling around in the snow. Beginning in 1957, an American Tom Slick funded a few missions to investigate Yeti reports. In 1959,"
"in the Hindu Kush for the BBC Two series ""Natural World"" episode ""Snow Leopard – Beyond the Myth"". The cat has been featured in segments of other episodes of the same series. The PBS/WNET series ""Nature"" focused on the species in its episode ""Silent Roar: Searching for the Snow Leopard"". A snow leopard named Dawa along with her cubs is one of the focal points of the 2017 Disneynature film ""Born in China"". In Peter Matthiessen's 1978 travelogue ""The Snow Leopard"", he recounts his two-month search with naturalist George Schaller for snow leopards in Nepal. In Philip Pullman's 1995–2000 fantasy"
"Hillary would later discount Yeti reports as unreliable. In his first autobiography Tenzing said that he believed the Yeti was a large ape, and although he had never seen it himself his father had seen one twice, but in his second autobiography he said he had become much more sceptical about its existence. During the ""Daily Mail"" Snowman Expedition of 1954, the mountaineering leader John Angelo Jackson made the first trek from Everest to Kanchenjunga in the course of which he photographed symbolic paintings of the Yeti at Tengboche gompa. Jackson tracked and photographed many footprints in the snow, most"
"Stickeen: An Adventure with a Dog and a Glacier Stickeen (1897) is a short memoir by American naturalist John Muir. It is about a trip he took in Alaska (1880) with a dog named Stickeen and their outing together on a glacier. It is one of Muir's best-known writings, and is now considered a classic dog story. It was first published in ""The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine"" in September 1897 (V. 54, No. 5), under the title ""An Adventure with a Dog and a Glacier"". The editor cut out parts of the original manuscript so Muir attempted a reconstruction when"
"was a Catoblepta, which so long lies dead as the moon (whereto it hath so natural a sympathy) wants her light. The word signified, that the moon wanted not the light, but the poor beast wanted the moon's light. The Catoblepas was listed in the ""Book of Imaginary Beings"" (1957) by Jorge Luis Borges. It is described as a black buffalo with a hog's head that is always looking down. Catoblepas The catoblepas (pl. catoblepones; from the Greek καταβλέπω, (katablépō) ""to look downwards"") is a legendary creature from Ethiopia, first described by Pliny the Elder and later by Claudius Aelianus."
"moves for an international ban on the ivory trade, which Matthiessen thought were influenced by the study conducted by him in collaboration with the ecologist David Western regarding the population of the forest elephant. The book also has a political subtext, since Matthiessen also commented on the brutality of certain governments in the region, as well as discussing the environment and the natural world. Certain human groups are described in far more glowing terms, such as the Mbuti pygmies in the Ituri Forest. African Silences African Silences is a 1991 book by Peter Matthiessen published by Random House. It recounts"
"story of his trip. Chatwin described ""In Patagonia"" as ""the narrative of an actual journey and a symbolic one ... It is supposed to fall into the category or be a spoof of Wonder Voyage: the narrator goes to a far country in search of a strange animal: on his way he lands in strange situations, people or other books tell him strange stories which add up to form a message."" The book is highly experimental in the way that it is structured. It is divided into a total of 97 separate sections, some of which are as short as"
"and Work of Brian Houghton Hodgson"" and ""Richard Meinertzhagen: Soldier Scientist and Spy"". These examined two remarkable figures from the age of Empire, radically different in personality, but united by the polymathic range of their interests. Hodgson was the Honourable East India Company’s resident (proto Ambassador) in Nepal, where he was a scholar of almost every branch of zoology, from fish and amphibians, to birds and mammals. He was also a scholar of Himalayan languages and of Mahayana Buddhism. Six weeks spent in a Tibetan Buddhist monastery led to Cocker's involvement in this book. Meinertzhagen, on the other hand, was"
"of a star tortoise both said to be part of the diet of the Nittaewo. Dr. Salvador Martinez, Spanish anthropologist, claimed to have seen a Nittaewo in Sri Lanka in 1984, though he did not report the incident for many years. According to him, the Nittaewo had a human appearance; its body appeared covered with a coat of long hair, with signs of scabs in some areas. Martinez remembers that the Nittaewo began to emit unintelligible sounds before fleeing toward the denseness of the forest. However, people have said he was mistaken and it was simply a member of a"
"Path of the Puma: The Remarkable Resilience of the Mountain Lion Path of the Puma: The Remarkable Resilience of the Mountain Lion, by Jim Williams, is a non-fiction book presenting the research of the author, a wildlife biologist and supervisor for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks' Region 1 in Kalispell. Williams also discusses DNA research conducted by others on these animals, and makes the case for coexistence with these big, wild cats With a foreword by Doug Chadwick, the book chronicles Williams' journey, from his early work at a Florida marine park, to his conversion to ""a lifelong devotee of"
"a ""who's who"" of extreme adventurers. His trips have resulted in many scientific findings which have helped form evidence for extinct animals. He has been captured by hostile natives, lived with pygmies, head hunters and desert tribes. In 2005, the Walt Disney Corporation consulted with Miller on a new attraction called Expedition Everest and used photographs he took while on his journey in the Himalayas researching the Yeti. Dr. Miller is also the author of three books about his adventures in cryptozoology such as ""Chasing Legends"" and ""The Legend Continues"", which are currently out of print. In 2011, Miller published"
"will not be generally entertained; but it must be remembered that a far more conspicuous creature, to wit, the okapi, has only been made known to us of late years, and that it is possible that such an animal as that now in question frequenting, as it would undoubtedly do, dense forest regions, and being of nocturnal habits, might have escaped observation. The possibility was considered that the Congolese spotted lion may have been part cheetah or a new species of leopard. In ""The Field"" No 2887, April 25, 1908, Henry Scherren wrote: In all probability the interesting animal now"
"of his sheep, but after he fired his gun, the creature ran into a forest on two legs. The story then claimed that border patrol soldiers captured a hairy two-legged female creature similar to a gorilla that ate meat and vegetation. This was later revealed as a hoax or possibly a publicity stunt for charity. The misidentification of Himalayan wildlife has been proposed as an explanation for some Yeti sightings, including the ""chu-teh"", a langur monkey living at lower altitudes; the Tibetan blue bear; or the Himalayan brown bear or ""dzu-teh"", also known as the Himalayan red bear. A well"
"Himalayan quail The Himalayan quail (""Ophrysia superciliosa"") or mountain quail is a medium-sized quail belonging to the pheasant family. It was last reported in 1876 and is feared extinct. This species was known from only 2 locations (and 12 specimens) in the western Himalayas in Uttarakhand, north-west India. The last verifiable record was in 1876 near the hill station of Mussoorie. The red bill and legs of this small dark quail and white spots before and after the eye make it distinctive. The male is dark grey with bleak streaks and a white forehead and supercilium. The female is brownish"
"""about animals that ""might"" exist."" ""On the Track of Unknown Animals"" cites animals that had only been discovered relatively recently, such as the pygmy chimpanzee, coelacanth, Komodo dragon and giant panda; and those that are believed to have become extinct relatively recently, such as the moa and Tasmanian tiger. A major theme is that these animals were generally known to local peoples, but their stories were dismissed by visiting zoologists, particularly the okapi. The author then discusses evidence for mystery animals from all over the world including the Mokele-mbembe, sea serpents and the Yeti, with an extensive bibliography. He begins"
"Hiero's Journey Hiero's Journey is a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by American writer Sterling Lanier first published in 1973 by Chilton Book Co. The novel follows the adventures of a priest by the name of Per Hiero Desteen as he explores the mutant-infested wilderness of Canada and North America five millennia after an event called The Death destroyed civilization. Riding a mutant moose named Klootz, with which he is able to communicate telepathically, Hiero attempts to uncover what has become of some colonies that his abbey has attempted to establish. Hiero's eventual allies include Gorm, a telepathic black bear, and"
"to Susannah Clapp, who edited the book, ""Rebecca West amused Chatwin by telling him that these were so good they rendered superfluous the entire text of the book."" For ""In Patagonia"" Chatwin received the Hawthornden Prize and the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In Patagonia In Patagonia is an English travel book by Bruce Chatwin, published in 1977. During the Second World War Chatwin and his mother stayed at the home of his paternal grandparents, who had a curiosity cabinet that fascinated him. Among the items it contained was a ""piece of brontosaurus"""
"the Northeast side of Kangchenjunga along the famous Zemu Glacier. The film Singalila in the Himalaya is journey around Kangchenjunga. The area around Kangchenjunga is said to be home to a mountain deity, called ""Dzö-nga"" or ""Kangchenjunga Demon"", a type of yeti or rakshasa. A British geological expedition in 1925 spotted a bipedal creature which they asked the locals about, who referred to it as the ""Kangchenjunga Demon"". For generations, there have been legends recounted by the inhabitants of the areas surrounding Mount Kanchenjunga, both in Sikkim and in Nepal, that there is a valley of immortality hidden on its"
"that acknowledges mutuality: Lady Dixie shared her observations of Patagonia with Charles Darwin. She took issue with Darwin's description of the Tuco-tuco in his ""Journal of Researches"" (1839). While Darwin had suggested that the Tuco-tuco were nocturnal creatures that lived almost entirely underground, Lady Dixie had seen the Tuco-tuco out during the daytime. She sent Darwin a copy of ""Across Patagonia""; Darwin's copy of this book is part of the Library of Charles Darwin located in the Rare Books Room of Cambridge University Library. When she returned from Patagonia, Dixie brought home with her a jaguar, which she called Affums"
"Bagheera Bagheera (; ""Baghīrā""/""Bagīdah"") is a fictional character in Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli stories in the ""Jungle Book"" (coll. 1894) and the ""Second Jungle Book"" (coll. 1895). He is a black panther (melanistic Indian leopard) who serves as friend, protector and mentor to the ""man-cub"" Mowgli. The word ""bagheera"" is Hindi/Urdu for black panther-- although the root word bagh means tiger. Born in captivity in the menagerie of the Raja of Udaipur, Rajasthan, India, Bagheera begins to plan for his freedom after his mother dies. Once he is mature and strong enough, he breaks the lock on his cage and escapes"
"the Himalayas, Professor Jeffries is led by his Sherpa, Pemba, to a high point on a mountain using an ancient tablet. Jeffries is out looking for the Abominable Snowman, who lives in the mountains. He's convinced that the Snowman lives close by, but Pemba tells him he won't lead Jeffries anymore, as it would be intruding on the territory of the Abominable Snowman. Jeffries, who seems to care about the Snowman over their safety, decides to cut the rope and continue. As soon as Jeffries fades from view, Pemba sees the outline of a large creature in front of him."