With this booklet, as with Mammals of the Southwest Deserts, we are indebted to Dr. E. L. Cockrum, Assistant Professor of Zoology at the University of Arizona who has checked the manuscript for accuracy. We are also grateful to him for offering suggestions and criticisms which have added materially to its interest.

The writer would also like to voice his appreciation to Ed Bierly whose magnificent illustrations adorn these pages. His is a talent with which it is a privilege to be associated.

Finally our thanks to the editor and his staff. It is not an easy task to combine text with illustrations, nor to match space with type, yet it has been done with feeling and precision.

Together, we hope that you will approve of our efforts. If through this booklet you gain a better understanding of the mammals that share the great outdoors with us, or if through it you should become aware of the urgent necessity of preserving some of our wild creatures, (and wild places), now before it is too late; we shall indeed be well repaid.