Watership Down the two girls. Adams's descriptions of wild rabbit behaviour were based on "The Private Life of the Rabbit" (1964), by British naturalist Ronald Lockley. The two later became friends, embarking on an Antarctic tour that became the subject of a co-authored book, "Voyage Through the Antarctic" (A. Lane, 1982). "Watership Down" was rejected seven times before it was accepted by Rex Collings. The one-man London publisher Collings wrote to an associate, "I've just taken on a novel about rabbits, one of them with extra-sensory perception. Do you think I'm mad?" The associate did call it "a mad risk," in her
The White Bone The White Bone The White Bone is a Canadian novel written by Barbara Gowdy and published by HarperCollins in 1999. It was nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 1998. Sometimes compared to Richard Adams's "Watership Down", it is an adult fantasy story about animals—in this case, African elephants—in a realistic natural setting but given the ability to speak to one another throughout the book. Subsequently, the elephants are given anthropomorphized personalities and have created their own religion, folklore, and customs, all based on the author's research on elephant behavior. The novel includes a map of the section of African