{illust. caption = Charles M. Russell, in The Blazed Trail of the Old Frontier by Agnes C. Laut (1926)}
HORNADAY, WILLIAM T. Camp Fires on Desert and Lava, London, n.d. OP. Dr. Hornaday, who died in 1937, was the first director of the New York Zoological Park. He was a great conservationist and an authority on the wild life of America.
HUDSON, W. H. The Naturalist in La Plata, New York, 1892. Not about the Southwest or even North America, but Hudson's chapters on "The Puma," "Some Curious Animal Weapons," "The Mephitic Skunk," "Humming Birds," "The Strange Instincts of Cattle," "Horse and Man," etc. come home to the Southwest. Few writers tend to make readers so aware; no other has written so delightfully of the lands of grass.
INGERSOLL, ERNEST. Wild Neighbors, New York, 1897. OP. A superior work. Chapter II, "The Father of Game," is on the cougar; Chapter IV, "The Hound of the Plains," is on the coyote; there is an excellent essay on the badger. Each chapter is provided with a list of books affording more extended treatment of the subject.
JAEGER, EDMUND C. Denizens of the Desert, Boston, 1922. OP. "Don Coyote," the roadrunner, and other characteristic animals. Our Desert Neighbors, Stanford University Press, California, 1950.
LOCKE, LUCIE H. Naturally Yours, Texas, Naylor, San Antonio, 1949. Charm must never be discounted; it is far rarer than facts, and often does more to lead to truth. This slight book is in verse and drawings, type integrated with delectable black-and-white representations of the prairie dog, armadillo, sanderling, mesquite, whirlwind, sand dune, mirage, and dozens of other natural phenomena. The only other book in this list to which it is akin is Eve Ganson's Desert Mavericks.
LUMHOLTZ, CARL. Unknown Mexico, New York, 1902. Nearly anything about animals as well as about Indians and mountains of Mexico may be found in this extraordinary two-volume work. OP.
MCILHENNY, EDWARD A. The Alligator s Life History, Boston, 1935. OP. The alligator got farther west than is generally known—at least within reach of Laredo and Eagle Pass on the Rio Grande. McIlhenny's book treats—engagingly, intimately, and with precision—of the animal in Louisiana. Hungerers for anatomical biology are referred to The Alligator and Its Allies by A. M. Reese, New York, 1915. I have more to say about McIlhenny in Chapter 30.
MARCY, COLONEL R. B. Thirty Years of Army Life on the Border, New York, 1866. Marcy had a scientific mind and a high sense of values. He knew how to write and what he wrote remains informing and pleasant.
MARTIN, HORACE T. Castorologia, or The History and Traditions of the Canadian Beaver, London, 1892. OP. The beaver is a beaver, whether on Hudson's Bay or the Mexican side of the Rio Grande. Much has been written on this animal, the propeller of the trappers of the West, but this famous book remains the most comprehensive on facts and the amplest in conception. The author was humorist as well as scientist.