The Drunken Forest

Rainforest

If you’ve read ‘My Family and other Animals’ by the same author, you will know that Durrell has a fantastic ability to make his hair-raising anecdotes of encounters with animals both hilarious and informative. ‘The Drunken Forest’ doesn’t disappoint on that count. There’s a few in particular that could be published as short stories in them-selves.
As a self-proclaimed collector Durrell, with the help of his wife sets out to Argentina and Paraguay to bring home animals for his zoo and preservation trust in Jersey. This is all set in the early 1950’s.
What I found difficult in some parts was the idea of collecting animals for a zoo, sometimes taking fledgling chicks away from their parents. The idea of zoos though, has undergone a drastic change in the last 50 years, with many becoming a huge resource for the study and care of animals. Indeed, many animal species only exist in zoos now. Gerald Durrell definitely belongs in more in the ‘preservation collector’ category rather than the ‘stick pins through insects and mount them’ type!
This book is a joy to read and I will relay one story of a grey pampas fox…

‘Foxey’s… interest in cigarette butts amounted to almost an obsession.
Whenever he found one he would pounce on it and devour it,
with the expression of utmost loathing on his face. Then he
would spend an uncomfortable half an hour coughing violently,
have a long drink of water and be ready for the next butt-end.
One awful day, however, Foxey learnt his lesson. Carelessly I
had left a nearly full packet of cigarettes within his reach, and
before I had discovered it Foxey had eaten the lot. To say that
he was sick would be a vast understatement. His stomach per-
formed the emesis of all time, and every last shred of paper and
tobacco was returned to the light of day, tastefully mixed with
Foxey’s breakfast. He was so exhausted by this effort that he just
lay and let a chicken walk right past him, and never even twitched
an ear. By evening he had recovered enough to eat a couple of
pounds of meat and two raw eggs, but the offer of a cigarette
caused him to back away, sneezing indignantly. Never again did
he sample tobacco in any shape or form.’