For many Southern men living in or close to rural landscapes, hunting is a passion. But it is not a timeless activity in a cultural void. Whether pursuers of fox or raccoon, deer or rabbits, quail or dove, Southern hunters reveal for Stuart Marks complex patterns of male bonding, social status, and relationships with nature. Marks, who has written two outstanding books on hunting in Africa, was born and has long lived in the South. Examining Southern hunting from frontier times through the antebellum era to the present day, he shows it to be a litmus test of rural identity. In the process he helps to bridge a gap between rural America and an urban world where the meanings of hunting have been eclipsed by mass cultural activities and industrialization.