If I could make time stop, I would, but I cannot. You must go and I must stay. Take with you my love, for I have loved you always. I will treasure our memories and live them on these pages. Memories of an unexpected love that changed my life forever.

See those animal signs on the trail? Was that footprint left by a fox or a wolf? Was that pile of droppings deposited by a moose, a mouse, or a marten? Scats and Tracks of the Southeast will help you determine which mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians have passed your way and could still be nearby. Clearly written descriptions and illustrations of scats, tracks, and gait patterns will help you recognize Southeast species. An identification key, a glossary of tracking terms, and detailed instructions on how to document your finds are also included here. Easy-to-use scat and track measurements appear on each page, making this book especially field friendly and letting you know if a white tailed ptarmigan, a red fox, or even a black bear has been your way.

See those animal signs on the trail? Was that footprint left by a fox or a wolf? Was that pile of droppings deposited by a moose, a mouse, or a marten? Scats and Tracks of the Pacific Coast will help you determine which mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians have passed your way and could still be nearby. Clearly written descriptions and illustrations of scats, tracks, and gait patterns will help you recognize seventy Pacific Coast species. An identification key, a glossary of tracking terms, and detailed instructions on how to document your finds are also included here. Easy-to-use scat and track measurements appear on each page, making this book especially field friendly and letting you know if a white tailed ptarmigan, a red fox, or even a black bear has been your way.

Whether you're on the lookout for a kit fox, or trying to steer clear of a bear, Scats and Tracks of the Desert Southwest, by nationally reknown tracker and author Dr. James Halfpenny, helps you recognize what critters went before you and is a primer for reading the stories written in the sand. Easy-to-use and accurate scat and track measurements on each page make this book particularly field friendly and the key to starting off your outing on the right foot!

See those animal signs on the trail? Was that footprint left by a fox or a wolf? Was that pile of droppings deposited by a moose, a mouse, or a marten? Scats and Tracks of the Rocky Mountains will help you determine which mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians have passed your way and could still be nearby. Clearly written descriptions and illustrations of scats, tracks, and gait patterns will help you recognize seventy Rocky Mountain species. An identification key, a glossary of tracking terms, and detailed instructions on how to document your finds are also included here. Easy-to-use scat and track measurements appear on each page, making this book especially field friendly and letting you know if a white tailed ptarmigan, a red fox, or even a black bear has been your way.

It was most fortuitous that on his first visit to Charleston, John James Audubon would meet John Bachman, a Lutheran clergyman and naturalist. Their chance encounter in 1831 and immediate friendship profoundly affected the careers and social ties of these two men. In this elegantly written book, Jay Shuler offers the first in-depth portrayal of the Bachman-Audubon relationship and its significance in the creation of Audubon's works. In the numerous writings celebrating Audubon, Bachman has been largely ignored, writes Shuler, ""though Bachman made substantive contributions to Audubon's Ornithological Biographies, was his partner in The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, and gave pivotal advice and assistance to Audubon during the troubled last decade of his career."" Drawing on their voluminous correspondence, replete with accounts of their ornithological adventures and details of their personal and professional lives, Had I the Wings provides new insights into Audubon's life and work and rescues from obscurity John Bachman's contributions to American ornithology and mammalogy. Audubon's career can be divided into phases. From 1820 to 1831 he painted and published the first hundred prints of The Birds of America. The second phase began when he met John Bachman and they worked to complete The Birds of America and launch The Quadrupeds. Over the next decade Bachman's home became, in effect, Audubon's home in America. Early on the Bachman-Audubon friendship was enriched and complicated by an intricate social web. Both men were fond of Bachman's sister-in-law and competed for her attention. Audubon's sons, John and Victor, married Bachman's older daughters, Maria and Eliza. Through the fifteen years of their relationship the friends exchanged long letters when separated and jointly wrote to their colleagues when together. In the early 1840s they collaborated on the first volume of The Quadrupeds. Volumes two and three were published after Audubon's death in 1851. Filled with exciting birding adventures and hunting expeditions, Had I the Wings illuminates the fascinating relationship between two major nineteenth-century naturalists.

The Australian Capital Territory is a treasure trove for naturalists, despite being without a coastline, without rainforest or without deserts. A wealth of biodiversity is found there, due to the close proximity of three major habitat types: the great western woodland grassy plains bump up against the inland edge of the coastal hinterland mountain forests, while the whole south-eastern Australian Alps system reaches its northern limit in the Brindabella Ranges. Each of these habitats has its own rich suite of plants and animals, so a great diversity of life can be found within an hour s drive of Parliament House. "A Bush Capital Year" introduces the fauna, flora, habitats and reserves of the Australian Capital Territory and includes the most recent research available. It also emphasizes often unappreciated or even unrecognized urban wildlife. For each month of the year there are 10 stories which discuss either a species or a group of species, such as mosses and mountain grasshoppers. While never anthropomorphic, many of the stories are written from the organism s point of view, while others are from that of an observer. Beautiful paintings complement the text and allow better visualization of the stories and the subjects."

As majestic as they are powerful, and as timeless as they are current, bears continue to captivate. Speaking of Bears is not your average collection of stories. Rather, it is the history, compiled from interviews with more than 100 individuals, of how Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon National Parks, all in California's Sierra Nevada, created a human-bear problem so bad that there were eventually over 2,000 incidents in a single year. It then describes the pivotal moments during which park employees used trial and error, conducted research, invented devices, collaborated with other parks, and found funding to get the crisis back under control. Speaking of Bears is for bear lovers, national park buffs, historians, wildlife managers, biologists, and anyone who wants to know the who, what, where, when, and why of what once was a serious human-bear problem, and the path these parks took to correct it. Although these Sierran parks had some of the worst black bear problems in the country, hosted much of the research, and invented the bulk of the technological solutions, they were not the only ones. For that reason, intertwining stories from several other parks including Yellowstone, the Great Smoky Mountains, and Banff-Canada are included. For anyone seeking solutions to human-wildlife conflicts throughout the world, the lessons-learned are invaluable and widely applicable.

In sixteen thoroughly engaging essays, naturalist Stephen Lyn Bales ventures far and wide among the richly diverse flora and fauna of his native Tennessee Valley. Whether describing the nocturnal habits of the elusive whip-poor-will, the pivotal role the hedge plant Osage orange played in a key Civil War battle, or the political firestorm that attended the discovery of a tiny fish dubbed the snail darter, Bales illuminates in surprising ways the complicated and often vexed relationships between humans and their neighbors in the natural world. Accompanied by the author's striking line drawings, each chapter in Natural Histories showcases a particular animal or plant and each narrative begins or ends in, or passes through the Tennessee Valley. Along the way, historical episodes both familiar and obscure-the de Soto explorations, the saga of the Lost State of Franklin, the devastation of the Trail of Tears, and the planting of a “Moon Tree� at Sycamore Shoals in Elizabethton-are brought vividly to life. Bales also highlights the work of present-day environmentalists and scientists such as the dedicated staffers of the Tennessee-based American Eagle Foundation, whose efforts have helped save the endangered raptors and reintroduce them to the wild. Arranged according to the seasonal cycles of the valley, Bales's essays reveal the balance that nature has achieved over millions of years, contrasting it with the messier business of human endeavor, especially the desire to turn nature into a commodity, something to be subdued and harvested. Filled with delightful twists and turns, Natural Histories is also a book brimming with important lessons for us all. Stephen Lyn Bales is a naturalist at Ijams Nature Center in Knoxville, Tennessee. He has been writing the “Neighborhood Naturalist� for the farragutpress since 1999 and is a regular columnist for the Hellbender Press.  

This fascinating reference book delves into the origins of the vernacular and scientific names of sharks, rays, skates and chimeras. Each entry offers a concise biography, revealing the hidden stories and facts behind each species' name. Full of interesting facts and humorous titbits, the authors' extensive research and detective work has made this book a comprehensive source of knowledge on everyone associated with the naming of a species. A fascinating resource for anyone with an interest in sharks, from curious naturalist to professional ichthyologist, it is an essential addition to the library of anyone wishing to satisfy those tickling questions on the mysteries behind the names. Sometimes a name refers not to a person but to a fictional character or mythological figure. Eptatretus eos is named after the Greek goddess of the dawn in reference to the pink colouring of the hagfish. The Chilean Roundray Urotrygon cimar, named after Centro de Investigacion en Ciencias del Mar y Limnologia in honour of its 20th anniversary, and the Angular Angelshark Squatina Guggenheim, named after the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, are both named after institutions. The Whiteleg Skate Amblyraja taaf is just a shorthand way of describing a toponym - Territoire des Terres australes et antarctiques francaises. There are also entries which are light-hearted such as the one for a lady who told us "that decoration of her cakes have included roughtail skate Bathyraja trachura, red abalone Haliotis rufescens, and chinook salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha." Following the success of their previous Eponym Dictionaries, the authors have joined forces to give the Elasmobranch group of fishes a similar treatment but they have also included the describers and authors of the original descriptions of the fishes involved, in addition to those names that are, or appear to be, eponyms. They have tracked down some 850 names of living as well as dead people. Of these half are eponyms after people who have fish named after them and may also have described a fish or fishes. The other half are ichthyologists, marine biologists and other scientists who have become involved in the description and naming of sharks, rays, skates and chimeras. For each person mentioned there is brief, pithy biography. Additionally there are some 50 entries for what sound like eponyms but turned out not to have any connection to a person, such as the Alexandrine Torpedo is named after the city in Egypt and not Alexander the Great. In some cases these are a reminder of the courage of scientists whose dedicated research in remote locations exposed them to disease and even violent death. The eponym ensures that their memory will survive, aided by reference works such as this highly readable dictionary. Altogether 1,577 fishes are listed.

In this short but informative guide, trusted authors Chris and Mathilde Stuart turn mammal ID on its head – literally. The identification of mammal skulls is the subject of this latest addition to the quirky ‘Quick Guide’ series, and covers the most common skulls readers are likely to encounter in the wild – from easily recognisable species such as elephant, hippo, rhino, baboons, antelope, whales and dolphins, to the more challenging family groups: dogs, cats, hyaenas, equids, pigs, civets and genets, mongooses, rats and mice, bats, sengis, shrews, moles, hares and rabbits, hyrax, and squirrels.
 
Each entry features:

• Close-up photographs showing the entire skull, teeth and, where available, upper and lower jaws
• Pointers to diagnostic features
• Average measurement for skull length
• Short description highlighting main features of each skull and tooth structure
• Dental formula for teeth in upper and lower jaws