Writer Tom McIntyre has been in Argentina, not just shooting doves but hunting birds behind pointing dogs and fishing. What caught my attention (and what he, an informed naturalist- hunter, knows well) was the unique identity of some of his quarry. Europeans often name local species after familiar things, but folk taxonomy is unreliable. South …
Author: Steve Bodio
Links, Pix, & Assorted Phenomena…
Long overdue, especially the New Improved Version 3 of Darren Naish’s Tetrapod Zoology, now hosted by Scientific American. I hope this means that Darren is finally making some money of what was and still is the best zoological blog on the Net. New data on ancient dog origins in SE Asia? They seem to think …
Sagebrush
Cat had me out on the mesas looking at natural and local history. I saw any number of golden eagles and literally hundreds of antelope– I thought I lived in antelope country– but the p & s made the raptors into dots and only this antelope, one of several bucks who stood his ground, was …
Wyoming
Back from Wyoming, exhausted, behind, but happy we went. Lib cooked for a wedding in Jackson , for the daughter of one of many old climbers and Outward Bound guides who she knew in her days there, when as they say “the billionaires hadn’t kicked out the millionaires.” In her day it was more a …
They knew it then…
… so why don’t “They” know it now? Writing in the Lonsdale Libary volume Hound & Dogs in 1932 (ed. A. Croxton Smith), Brigadier-General F, F. Lance said: “The Saluki varies in type according to the country from which he comes. He covers a very large area, extending from Northern Africa to India and from …
Most Beautiful Pigeon?
Annie D sent an anonymous web mail of over- the- top- birds. One is of my favorite wild pigeon, the Nicobar (Caloenas nicobarica) of the east Indies. I’d be glad to credit it–?
Country fun
We’ve worked far too hard lately, and everyone felt the need to blow off a little steam last weekend. What better way than to load up onto the back of a flatbed ranch truck and take a tour of our booming prairie dog town (located just outside our yard). The weekend involved a variety of …
More Doom
Birmingham, once one of the greatest gun centers in the world, has renamed its gun quarter. “One of Britain’s oldest industrial areas has been renamed after council leaders claimed local people no longer wanted to be associated with the weapons of war. “Opponents of the name change say the Gun Quarter has been sacrificed on …
Commonplace Book
“Everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that’s so deeply a part of your being that you can’t even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not …
A Historic Gun?
A Savage Model 99, for its forward- looking elegance and efficiency perhaps my all time favorite American rifle design (and Roy Chapman Andrews, the model for Indiana Jones, took one to the Gobi when he discovered the Flaming Cliffs fossil beds and the first Dino eggs!) This one is a take- down model in the …