Ebook: The Masked Bobwhite Rides Again

As a born-again Arizonan transplanted in stages from Massachusetts
to the Sonoran Desert, I have adopted my latest home with
all the enthusiasm of a religious convert. Each time I venture into
the desert, I can still barely believe my good fortune in being able
to visit places where you can walk without bumping into other
people, where the earth is populated with so many strangely wonderful
plants and animals, each one competing for the honor of the
most beautifully adapted to a most rigorous environment or most
unEastern in its aspect or most ascetically aesthetic.

In this book I have tried to convey what it is about the natural
history of my adopted homeland that appeals to me so strongly.
I shall also explain why the flood of human immigrants that have
joined me in the desert and the cows that call this land home, too,
cause me great concern and worry. There is, I believe, ample reason
to fear for the integrity o fthe Sonoran Desert in central Arizona, to
wonder if we will maintain the biological heritage that preceded us
here and has the capacity to enrich the lives of us all, if we would
just respect it a little more. [from Preface]

John Alcock is the Emeritus' Professor in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University.
The most remarkable of his books are The Triumph of Sociobiology (2003), and Animal Behavior: An Evolutionary Approach (ninth edition, 2009).