Sport and Conservation in the Potocki Preserve
A Trip to Pilawin: The Deer-Park of Count Joseph Potocki in Volhynia Russia.
London: Rowland Ward, 1908.
Price: $1,000.00
About the item
First edition. Illustrated. xiv, 115, [1], [2, ads] pp. 1 vols. 4to. Sport and Conservation in the Potocki Preserve. Original pale blue cloth over bevelled boards, titled in gilt with mounted photo vignette. Bookseller ticket of Chas. B. Lauriat, Boston. Small scuff at foot of front board, else near fine.
Item #334838
In his preface, the noted sportsman Potocki (author of Sport in Somaliland, etc.) recounts how he started the preserve at Pilawin to provide a wild habitat for the breeding of elk and that his success encouraged him to import American and Siberian wapiti, the red deer of the Caucasus, and other animals. He was given a breeding pair of European bison from the royal preserve of Bielowicz, and added a herd of American bison as well. The Pilawin preserve, near the Potocki palace of Antoniny (in present day Ukraine), comprised more than 7,000 acres of forests and meadows enclosed by an eight-foot high wooden paling and was part of a larger forest of some 50,000 acres.
Scarce and important record of sport and preservation before the Great War.
