Small Creatures and Ordinary Places: Essays on Nature
by Allen M. Young illustrated by Judith Huf
University of Wisconsin Press, 2000 Cloth: 978-0-299-16960-2 | Paper: 978-0-299-16964-0 | eISBN: 978-0-299-16963-3 Library of Congress Classification QH81.Y68 2000 Dewey Decimal Classification 508
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Small Creatures and Ordinary Places reveals to us the beauty and value of hornets, bats, katydids, mice, cicadas, and other tiny dwellers in our own backyards. Young, a renowned expert on butterflies and cicadas of the American tropics, records in these charming essays his keen observations of the natural world as he walks through an urban woods near the Lake Michigan shore, or sits on his deck facing his backyard, or gazes at a field of corn stubble in autumn. He invites us to venture into our own yards, neighborhood parks, fields, and forests and pause there . . . to look and to listen.
Small creatures have unique and interesting stories to tell us, Young points out. Their brief life cycles illustrate the intricate workings of a bigger clock driving the seasons, and they dominate the larger web of life in which humans are but a strand. Far too often they are ignored, taken for granted, reviled, or misunderstood. Even now, Young writes, as we move into a new millennium as a species and the technological pace of our existence further quickens, we can gain much from appreciating nature close at hand, despite how steadily it is being pushed aside.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Allen M. Young is curator of zoology and vice president of collections, research, and public programs at the Milwaukee Public Museum. His essays on nature have appeared in the Chicago Tribune Magazine, Milwaukee Journal, Miami Herald, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Sun-Times, and Wisconsin Natural Resources. He is the author of several books on the natural history of the tropics, including The Chocolate Tree, Sarapiqui Chronicle, and Lives Intertwined. He also prepared a revised edition of the Golden Guide to Insects, a book that in an earlier edition inspired his boyhood fascination with the life cycles of insects.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Illustrations
Preface
Introduction
Spring
Mourning Cloaks
Spring Peepers
Summer
Monarch Butterflies
Annual Cicadas
Paper Wasps
Firefly Magic
Bat Plays
Green Darners
Autumn
True Katydids
Hard Frost
A Withered Patch of Wild.owers
Winter
Between Cornfield and Forest
Cocooning
A Royal Oak
Winter Moon
Commencement
Bibliography
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
Small Creatures and Ordinary Places: Essays on Nature
by Allen M. Young illustrated by Judith Huf
University of Wisconsin Press, 2000 Cloth: 978-0-299-16960-2 Paper: 978-0-299-16964-0 eISBN: 978-0-299-16963-3
Small Creatures and Ordinary Places reveals to us the beauty and value of hornets, bats, katydids, mice, cicadas, and other tiny dwellers in our own backyards. Young, a renowned expert on butterflies and cicadas of the American tropics, records in these charming essays his keen observations of the natural world as he walks through an urban woods near the Lake Michigan shore, or sits on his deck facing his backyard, or gazes at a field of corn stubble in autumn. He invites us to venture into our own yards, neighborhood parks, fields, and forests and pause there . . . to look and to listen.
Small creatures have unique and interesting stories to tell us, Young points out. Their brief life cycles illustrate the intricate workings of a bigger clock driving the seasons, and they dominate the larger web of life in which humans are but a strand. Far too often they are ignored, taken for granted, reviled, or misunderstood. Even now, Young writes, as we move into a new millennium as a species and the technological pace of our existence further quickens, we can gain much from appreciating nature close at hand, despite how steadily it is being pushed aside.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Allen M. Young is curator of zoology and vice president of collections, research, and public programs at the Milwaukee Public Museum. His essays on nature have appeared in the Chicago Tribune Magazine, Milwaukee Journal, Miami Herald, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Sun-Times, and Wisconsin Natural Resources. He is the author of several books on the natural history of the tropics, including The Chocolate Tree, Sarapiqui Chronicle, and Lives Intertwined. He also prepared a revised edition of the Golden Guide to Insects, a book that in an earlier edition inspired his boyhood fascination with the life cycles of insects.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Illustrations
Preface
Introduction
Spring
Mourning Cloaks
Spring Peepers
Summer
Monarch Butterflies
Annual Cicadas
Paper Wasps
Firefly Magic
Bat Plays
Green Darners
Autumn
True Katydids
Hard Frost
A Withered Patch of Wild.owers
Winter
Between Cornfield and Forest
Cocooning
A Royal Oak
Winter Moon
Commencement
Bibliography
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE