Texas Natural History, A Century of Change

This treasure belongs on every Texas naturalist’s and historian’s bookshelf. This book resulted from the author’s visit to the Smithsonian Institution Archives where he discovered the original reports, notebooks and photographs from Vernon Bailey’s 1905 Biological Survey of Texas. His original goal was to merely reprint Bailey’s work, this book is much better. Nearly one hundred years after Bailey published his results, Schmidly (a respected mammalogist and now president of Texas Tech) compares Bailey’s report (Chapter 2 of the book) with the status of mammals in the state today. Schmidly annotates the report to provide current information on the species mentioned, then discusses changes in landscapes, land use, and the status of mammals in the last hundred years. The closing chapter sites modern research to project coming challenges for wildlife. Photographs from the early years of the twentieth century and maps of the distribution of mammals then and now illustrate the volume, which also contains a cross-reference list of scientific names and common names of mammals and plants and an extensive reference list. Although the majority of both the survey and the book is devoted to mammals, the original survey includes Texas Life Zones with characteristic species of mammals, birds, reptiles and plants, and a chapter on reptiles. Houston Audubon President Jeff Mundy says: ""A fascinating look at Texas in the not too distant past and a compelling picture to make us realize that we live in one of the most remarkable places in North America.""

Hardcover, 576 pages, 7 × 10 ins., 144 b&w photos, 43 maps, notes, bibliography, index"