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Mammals of Wisconsin
by Hartley Jackson
Recommended by Tamarack Song
Mammals of wisconsin, by Hartley Jackson. Critics recognized it as a definite work when it was first published in 1961. Today, it is indeed the standard work in its field - the most comprehensive, useful, and enjoyable mammal guide to the entire North Central States region, equally valuable to the professional zoologist, the lay "wildlife watcher," and the ecology-minded student.
For a mammalogist to compile a list of the more than eighty known state mammals, giving reliable data for their identification, habitat, population density, breeding, foods, and predators, is a considerable achievement in itself. But Hartley Jackson was not content to write a reference volume for the specialist alone. In addition to presenting reliable and useful data, he has shared with his readers the useful knowledge of his fifty years in the field, where he observed not only the essential characteristics of the animals he describes, but their behavioral idiosyncrasies as well. Thus, when writing about the cinereous shrew, Jackson not only gives an accurate description, but gives us his considered opinion that the animal is "an active, vicious, voracious, high-strung, and restless little imp." He describes how young rabbits often scream in their nests when hungry or alone, and how porcupines "sing" a great deal in their wooing. He shares folk legends about the animals, and tells what parts various animals played in the lives of the Natives and early settlers.
This book expresses both Jackson's meticulous scholarship and his unabashed love for his work. Mammals of Wisconsin with more than 350 photos and illustrations, is thus a highly-dependable reference volume and a book for frequent and plesant browsing.The amount of work and study which Jackson conducted to complete this volume is a matter of record. He spent more than three years in field reseach especially for this book. He examined, personally, more than 36,000 specimens; and he spent countless hours in examining old books and records to complement his personal studies and observations.
Mammals of Wisconsin is a book which only Hartley Jackson could have written, and it will long stand as a monument to him. Jackson, born in Wisconsin, published his first scientific paper at age 15. That was the beginning of an extraordinarily long and highly distinguished career covering more than seventy-five years, forty of which were spent as a member of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In that time, he gained the just reputation of an internationally known mammaologist, having published more than 900 papers and articles. It was after his official retirment, in 1951, that he at last found time to devote to this work, which has been described both as a "comprehensive scientific treatise" and as "a task of dedicated devotion." Hardcover. 504 pages. University of Wisconsin Press. First edition 1961. ISBN: 0299021505.
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