Best of
Nature

1973

One Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey


Sam Keith - 1973
    Thousands have had such dreams, but Richard Proenneke lived them. He found a place, built a cabin, and stayed to become part of the country. One Man's Wilderness is a simple account of the day-to-day explorations and activities he carried out alone, and the constant chain of nature's events that kept him company. From Proenneke's journals, and with first-hand knowledge of his subject and the setting, Sam Keith has woven a tribute to a man who carved his masterpiece out of the beyond.

The Ocean World


Jacques-Yves Cousteau - 1973
    An eyepopping, beautifully designed volume, brimming over with glorious full-color photographs of the ocean's bounty and its most secret underwater habitats, this book includes 18 lively chapters covering all aspects of life in the sea: evolution, reproduction, foodgetting, motion, communications, attack and defense, legends and tales, life in the polar regions and in the abyss, and the future of the oceans. "Even out of the water, the reader feels immersed in the intoxicating `rapture of the deep'..."-- Newsday. 9 1/2" x 12".

The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium


Gerald Durrell - 1973
    It constitutes a series of anecdotal snippets and short stories including 'The Picnic', a laugh-out-loud account of an ill-fated Durrell family excursion, which should have been a relaxing, jolly affair. But with the Durrells things are seldom straightforward and on this occasion all that could go wrong did go wrong - except Gerald Durrell's sense of humour in recounting the tale. Other hilarious and surreal Roald Dahlesque stories ensue, including the critically acclaimed Gothic horror story 'The Entrance'.

Parrots of the World


Joseph M. Forshaw - 1973
    Doubleday was the US publisher (ISBN 0385056281) this book is out of print, as it's a parrot fanatic's ultimate reference to parrots in the wild. Beautifully illustrated with full-color plates, it covers every known species of parrot, and some that are sadly extinct since its printing. It provides information on all aspects of parrots in the wild as far as they are known, from size to range to breeding habits to habitat, but it's really the illustrations that make this book so valuable. If you're at all interested in wild parrots, this book is among the best.

The Years of the Forest


Helen Hoover - 1973
    It is a book of wilderness adventure, it is an education in the ingenuities of wilderness housekeeping, filled with practical details about making do, building and rebuilding, gardening for fun and for food, even advice about getting away from getting-away-from-it-all.

Shining Levels


John Wyatt - 1973
    He was overwhelmed by the freedom of the landscape and the closeness to nature he felt. It was as if he belonged here, amongst the fells, the crags and the endless horizon. This call to the wild stayed with him, becoming so powerful that one day he did what many only dream of: he left a steady job and his town life to become a forestry worker in a Lakeland wood at Cartmel Fell. This is one of the finest books ever written on the Lake District. Like Thoreau, John Wyatt embraced the simplicity of living alone in a woodland hut, immersing himself in a life made rich by birdsong, foraging for food the smell of woodsmoke, and the extraordinary companionship of Buck, a young roe deer discovered in the woods.

Everett Ruess: A Vagabond for Beauty & Wilderness Journals


W.L. Rusho - 1973
    At the age of 20, he mysteriously vanished into the barren Utah desert. Ruess has become an icon for modern-day adventurers and seekers. His search for ultimate beauty and adventure is chronicled in two books that contain remarkable collections of his writings, extracted from his journals and from letters written to family and friends. Both books are reprinted here in their entirety.

Flora of the Pacific Northwest: An Illustrated Manual


C. Leo Hitchcock - 1973
    Leo Hitchcock, Arthur Cronquist, Marion Ownbey, and J. W. Thompson, and published serially from 1955 to 1969 by the University of Washington Press as volume 17 of the University of Washington Publications in Biology. The sequence of families is the same in the two works except for the transposition of the monocotyledons and dicotyledons; the dicotyledons are in the traditional Englerian sequence, and the monocotyledons are arranged according to the system of Cronquist as presented in "The Evolution and Classification of Flowering Plants." The genera within each family in this manual are alphabetically arranged, as in the earlier work, but for convenience in presentation it has bee necessary to number the species.

Everett Ruess: A Vagabond for Beauty


W.L. Rusho - 1973
    Many have been inspired by his intense search for adventure, leaving behind the amenities of a comfortable life. His search for ultimate beauty and oneness with nature is chronicled in this remarkable collection of letters to family and friends.

A Bevy of Beasts


Gerald Durrell - 1973
    Durrell soon found himself beginning a new career with the discovery (in the person of a large and ill-tempered male named Albert) that not all lions are noble, and that almost everything written about them is untrue. He then goes on to make the acquaintance of a remarkably friendly tiger named Paul, a polar bear whose paw needs doctoring, a raccoon-like dog, a wombat named Peter, Pere David's deer... and many more. [Excerpted from the book jacket.]

What Bird Is That: A Guide To The Birds Of Australia


Neville W. Cayley - 1973
    

Frosty: A Raccoon to Remember


Harriet E. Weaver - 1973
    

Eyelids of Morning: The Mingled Destinies of Crocodiles and Men


Alistair Graham - 1973
    Peter Beard, photograher. Eyelids of Morning. The Mingled Destinies of Crocodiles and Men. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, [1990]. First Chronicle Books edition. Quarto. 260 pages. Photographs by and other illustrations compiled by Peter Beard. Publisher's binding and dust jacket.This reissued classic, hailed by reviewers as "enthralling" and "vividly dramatic" when it was first published in 1974, chronicles Graham's three years in Kenya researching the habits, history, and dubious future of one of the last great crocodile populations on earth. 9" x 12". Color & b&w photos & illus.

Three Adventures: Galapagos, Titicaca, the Blue Holes (Undersea Discoveries of Jacques-Yves Cousteau)


Jacques-Yves Cousteau - 1973
    

A Place Called Sweet Apple: Country Living and Southern Recipes


Celestine Sibley - 1973
    Sibley writes about breathing life into an old house and moving from the city to the country in this story of personal discovery and fulfillment laced with wry humor and good common sense.

The Casual Observer


Elizabeth Whitson - 1973
    

A Mouse To Be Free


Joyce W. Warren - 1973
    A little mouse tries to communicate his need to be free to the little girl who owns him.

Octopus and Squid: The Soft Intelligence (Undersea Discoveries of Jacques-Yves Cousteau)


Jacques-Yves Cousteau - 1973
    124 photographs in full color.

Bird of Jove


David Bruce - 1973
    

Hubert the Caterpillar Who Thought He Was a Moustache


Wendy Stang - 1973
    

The Woods


Charles B. Seib - 1973
    

The Unofficial Countryside


Richard Mabey - 1973
    From orchids growing in abandoned cars to kestrels over Kensington, this is Britain's unofficial countryside.

Humboldt And The Cosmos


Douglas Botting - 1973
    This work looks at the man, what drove him, the age he lived in, and follows his journeys of discovery along the Casiquiare canal and the Upper Orinoco of Venezuela.

One cosmic instant;: Man's fleeting supremacy


John A. Livingston - 1973
    

AA Book of the British Countryside


Automobile Association of Great Britain - 1973
    This is an illustrated guide to the British Countryside

The Shrub Identification Book


George W.D. Symonds - 1973
    The Keys are designed for easy visual comparison of details which look alike, narrowing the identification of a shrub to one of a small group -- the family or genus.Then, in the Master Pages, the species of the shrub is determined, with similar details placed together to highlight differences within the family group, thus eliminating all other possibilities. The details of laurel blossoms on this plate are an example and are followed in the book by details of laurel fruit, leaves, and bark.All of the 3,550 photographs were made specifically for use in this book and were taken either in the field or of fresh material carefully selected from the more than 20,000 specimens collected. Wherever possible, details such as leaves, fruit, twigs, etc., appear in actual size; otherwise, similar details are reproduced in the same scale.

The International Book Of Trees: A Guide And A Tribute To The Trees Of Our Forests And Gardens


Hugh Johnson - 1973
    

Once upon a Wilderness


Calvin Rutstrum - 1973
    Like Henry David Thoreau, he set out to live a simpler, more meaningful life. In his pursuit, Rutstrum came to appreciate the natural world and the skills necessary to survive in it. Part memoir, part guidebook, and part environmental treatise, Once upon a Wilderness is a treasury of wilderness wisdom.Rutstrum reminisces about lessons that his time in the wilderness has taught him. He writes about a range of backcountry issues, including environmental preservation, cultural sensitivity toward Native Americans, the urban versus the rural, and the artistic value of practical skills. Through his thoughtful consideration of the pleasure and value of wilderness, Rutstrum offers a clarion call for a saner, more socially responsible and environmentally sensitive way of living.

Discovering Sierra Trees


Stephen F. Arno - 1973
    Both conifers and broad-leaved trees are examined in depth, with extensive natural histories for some 36 different species. Descriptions of age, size, characteristics and reproduction are included. When appropriate, interesting anecdotes and historical highlights are added.

The Tree Identification Book


George W.D. Symonds - 1973
    The Keys are designed for easy visual comparison of details which look alike, narrowing the identification of a tree to one of a small group -- the family or genus.Then, in the Master Pages, the species of the tree is determined, with similar details placed together to highlight differences within the family group, thus eliminating all other possibilities. The details of the Oak trees on this plate are an example of the system.All of the more than 1500 photographs were made specifically for use in this book and were taken either in the field or of carefully collected specimens. Where possible, details such as leaves, fruit, etc., appear in actual size, or in the same scale.

The Ocean World of Jacques Cousteau Instint and Intelligence


Jacques-Yves Cousteau - 1973