Memoirs of a Naturalist (inscribed)
Norman: U Oklahoma P, 1969. First edition. Hardcover. An association copy, inscribed on the half-title page: "To my good friends Isabel & Cliff Fitzgerald, with many memories of Norias Plantation, Herbert L. Stoddard Sr., Sherwood Plantation, Nov. 25. 1969." An uncommon book in general and scarce signed, as Stoddard died in 1970. And a great association: Clifford Fitzgerald was an advertising executive (see his NYT obit) who bought the storied quail- hunting Norias Plantation in Leon County, Florida in 1962. Sherwood Plantation was Stoddard's 1,000-acre property in nearby Grady County, Georgia. This area straddling the Georgia-Florida border is renown for its "plantations" maintained by wealthy owners, largely from the north, primarily as game reserves. Stoddard based his famous bobwhite study across these plantations and was supported by these property owners substantially. Very likely he studied and hunted quail at Norias.
Via his bobwhite studies, Stoddard was an important pioneer of wildlife management. While Aldo Leopold is often cited as the founder or father figure of wildlife management, Leopold himself pointed to Stoddard, writing "Herbert Stoddard, in Georgia, started the first management of wildlife based on research." The two were good friends. As this autobiography details at length, Stoddard was a high school dropout who apprenticed himself to a taxidermist, began to work in a Milwaukee museum, and eventually took to the field and went on to co-found the renown Tall Timbers Research Station in Florida. He is also well-known for his studies of the importance of fire to longleaf pine habitat and of bird mortality due to radio towers and what it reveals about migration patterns.
Octavo in beige cloth with olive green endpapers. Several glossy inserts of black and white photos. With a foreword by famed bird artist George Miksch Sutton; the jacket cover illustration is also by Sutton and was done at Sherwood Plantation. And with a bibliography and index at rear. Very good with faint foxing to text block edges, a slight musty smell. One minor bump to lower rear corner of text block that has dogeared a run of about 12 pages. In a very good pale jacket with wear to corners and spine ends, a subtle dampstain to lower spine (book unaffected), and a few short tears or nicks to edges. A nice find, with no other signed copies available as of this writing
. Very good / Very good. Item #1695
ISBN: 9780806108575
Price: $3,750.00 save 5% $3,562.50