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The Very Best of Charles Darwin comprises On the Origin of Species and The Voyage of the Beagle. The first introduced the theory that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection. The evidence was gathered on the Beagle expedition in the 1830s, recounted in The Voyage of the Beagle, which is both a travel memoir and a scientific field journal of anthropological, biological, and geological interest.

Focusing on the author’s tiger-hunting exploits, Man-Eating Tigers of India includes a detailed description of the tiger’s habits and instructions on how to organize and conduct a safe and successful hunt. This chore of putting an end to man-eating tigers seems to have been the burden of Baker. The work concludes with a riveting narrative of an actual case of hunting and eliminating a troublesome tiger.

Frederick Courteney Selous (1851-1917) was a British explorer, hunter, and conservationist. In this work, The Lion in South Africa, he describes his numerous encounters with wild lions and notes that as far back as the 1890s, lion numbers were shrinking from overhunting.

Jean-Henri Casimir Fabre (1823-1915) was a French naturalist, entomologist, and author known for the engaging style of his popular books on the lives of insects. In The Life of the Spider, Fabre’s careful observations of the species tarantula, the banded epeira, the Narbonne lycosa, the crab spider and the labyrinth spider are presented in lively descriptions. He also compares the various species, all of which are industrious predators and highly talented weavers.

In 1898, the British were building a railway line between Mombasa in Kenya and Uganda. At the Tsavo River in Kenya where a bridge needed to be built, the project was suddenly interrupted by two man-eating lions that targeted the camps of the workers. Over a period of nine months, the lions killed scores of people. These lions were deliberately hunting people, preferring humans over any other prey, and they seemed to have supernatural abilities in evading all attempts to stop them. Colonel J.H. Patterson, the chief engineer in charge of the project, finally managed to eliminate them.

Mark Twain’s essay "The Bee" has a comical twist. It deals with the natural pressure on one bee assure that her colony survives. "After the queen, the next bee in importance to the hive is the virgin. All work is done by them. The males do not work, the queen does no work, unless laying eggs is work."

Henry Shakespear’s book contains gripping accounts of hunting wild animals in India in the mid-19th century, along with supplementary commentary on the breeding and rearing of horses. At that time, the wild beasts of India posed a real threat to villagers as is evident from an 1855/56 report from one district which records 150 deaths caused by bears and tigers. Shakespear provides detailed descriptions based on his personal encounters in chapters like Hog-Hunting, The Man-Eater, Tiger-Shooting, The Panther, The Bear, Bears and Buffalos, Wild Elephants, and The Buffalo and the Bison.

On the Origin of Species (1859) by Charles Darwin is a work of scientific literature considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology. The book introduced the theory that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection, backed by a body of evidence that the diversity of life arose by common descent through a branching pattern of evolution. The evidence was gathered on the Beagle expedition in the 1830s and the author’s subsequent findings from research, correspondence, and experimentation.

"The Song of the Cardinal" by Gene Stratton-Porter is the story of a big male Cardinal bird in the Wabash Valley, Indiana. Living in a tree near the home of a farmer and his wife, the bird sings with passion and joie de vivre to attract a mate, which he finds, and a charming romance develops. Unfolding at a leisurely pace, the story portrays the varied natural settings of the region in a most engaging way. The theme of nature and mankind’s responsibility to care for it, is present throughout the narrative.

On Horsemanship, also sometimes titled The Art of Horsemanship, is a treatise written about 350 BCE by the Athenian historian, soldier, and student of Socrates, Xenophon (c. 430-354 BC). The treatise is a "hands-on" manual which deals with the selection, care, and training of horses in general.

This work covers Darwin's part in the second survey expedition of the ship HMS Beagle. It is both a travel memoir and a scientific field journal of anthropological, biological, and geological interest. Darwin conveys his fascination with the natural world in an engaging writing style.

The great scientists Louis Pasteur (1822-1893) and Joseph Lister (1827-1912) revolutionized medical practice in the 19th century. Pasteur's discovery of the cause of fermentation formed the basis of modern germ theory while Lister developed antiseptic surgical methods based on that. The book contains a description of the theory, and accounts of their work and experiments.