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Hardcover in illustrated dust jacket. Revised edition with new material added. Illustrated with ten drawings. 192 pages.
In 1887, a well-heeled physician and ornithologist from Boston, Dr. Arthur C. Peirce, ventured to Corpus Christi, Texas, in pursuit of bird skins and eggs for his collection. His guide through the bramble and bogs of South Texas was John Marion Priour—an exceedingly able and decidedly Texan guide, and owner of the most inept hunting dog to ever disturb Texas soil.
After nearly a year of trekking through this inhospitable terrain with Mr. Priour, Dr. Peirce returned to Boston with many hunting trophies...and memories of enough adventure (and misadventure) to fill a book…this book.
Peirce was a masterful storyteller and, although the descriptions of what he witnessed in South Texas are often hilarious and lighthearted, his narrative is also of vast historical importance.
Through Peirce’s eyes, we see how sparsely settled Corpus Christi and the surrounding areas were in the late 19th century. We visit towns and settlements now extinct. We encounter freed slaves and their families living in the river bottoms, and observe their living conditions and vernacular. We witness the abundance of bird life along the coast and beyond. We are exposed to the rigors of camp life—sleeping in a homespun tent during a spring downpour, the culinary horrors, and the dangers of skunks, wasps, mosquitoes, marauding pigs…even the occasional pterodactyl.
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