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 Colours of Animals in evolution. She writes that Poulton's position was highly influential, stating that later "Darwinian experts on coloration" followed his views, citing Frank Evers Beddard's 1892 "Animal Coloration" as evidence. In his Introduction to Hugh Bamford Cott's 1940 book "Adaptive Coloration in Animals", Julian Huxley praised Cott's work as "a worthy successor to Sir Edward Poulton's "The Colours of Animals"... The one was a pioneer study, the other is in many respects the last word on the subject"". The Colours of Animals The Colours of Animals is a zoology book written in 1890 by Sir Edward Bagnall Poulton (1856–1943). It was