The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 51, July 1947 - April, 1948 Page: 175

Zexas Collectio
WALTER PRESCOTT WEBB
HIS Texas Collection is written under most trying con-
ditions. The deadline is here, and on this morning, of all
others, temptation was laid on my desk in the form of
Roy Bedichek's Adventures with a Texas Naturalist. It would be
an encroachment to review the book here because the review
belongs to another department, and must come in a later issue.
Still, I want to talk about this book which marks a departure
in Texas literature. There has been nothing like it come out of
Texas before. All his mature life Roy Bedichek has loved nature,
birds, insects, small fugitive animals, but birds above all. Also
he has read throughout his life the best literature, associated
with the keenest and wisest minds through books. On top of
this Roy Bedichek is noted among his friends with discernment
to see for having a vigorous and robust mind. Now when a man
combines knowledge, wisdom, taste, and courage in a book of
observations about nature, he has done something unusual in
these times. Here is a book you will read and caress and read
again. You will place it on a shelf where you can see it often
and be reminded of the delightful things within. Then when
you walk into the fields and forest you will carry its contents in
your mind and see many things that you might otherwise miss.
Ward Lockwood, of the Fine Arts Department, University of
Texas, drew the illustrations, as excellent as the book. Doubleday
is the publisher.
Dr. Z. T. Scott, 3700 Windsor Road, Austin, has retired from
the practice of medicine and is devoting a part of his leisure to
history. The project he has in mind is a history of the King
Ranch. I would say that such a task will consume a great deal
of leisure and the finished product will be of interest to a great
many people.
W. Turrentine Jackson of Iowa State College has been elected
to the History Department of the University of Chicago. Colonel