Album of North American Animals

Foreword

TIME WAS WHEN our people lived close to nature, and the young naturalist could learn about animal life from hunting, fishing, running his trap line, and working about the farm. But nature shrinks away from the ever-expanding activities of modern man; and thus unfortunately a widening breach has come between them.

Proper understanding of Mother Nature is essential if she and man co-exist, and conservation of natural resources must be accomplished by those who appreciate the wilderness. They who must achieve the understanding and conservation will be mainly those who early in life develop a strong interest in wildlife. Boys and girls who collect insects, study birds, keep exotic pets, visit zoological gardens and natural history museums, and read everything they can get on animal life will likely be the naturalists and conservationists of the future.

The nature writer and artist who bring to the reader an understanding of wildlife perform a valuable service. This ALBUM OF NORTH AMERICAN ANIMALS contains descriptions and superb portraits of twenty-six of the most magnificent mammals of North America. In non-technical language, information on life history, behavior, geographic distribution, and past and present abundance of these mammals is woven into colorful natural episodes relating each animal to its unique environment. An animal divorced from its own natural habitat can never be quite real to the true lover of wildlife, whether he be naturalist, hunter, or fisherman,

The natural environment is more than tranquil or lovely surroundings, or, on the other hand, more than conflict. Environment is, at least in part, an ever-shifting meshwork of energy flow involving both living and non-living things. Birth and death, climate and seasons, courtship and family care, disease, and competition or cooperation among species are but a few of the factors that go to make up the whole environment. Add to them man's countless disruptive actions as he blindly goes about his affairs. Here he introduces a foreign or exotic species; there he carelessly or intentionally exterminates animals and plants; and everywhere he alters, pollutes, and obliterates natural habitats. 

 In ALBUM OF NORTH AMERICAN ANIMALS, fascinating glimpses of the ways of life of many of our big-game and fur-bearing animals are preserved, as glimpses of the fleeting past are preserved in a photographic album. This nature book-aptly called an "album"–is for all the family to enjoy, and suggests, too, the importance of preserving our heritage of wildlife for future generations.

Charles A. Long