Strictly for the Chickens

Iowa State Press, 1980. First edition. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. Signed on the title page in blue ink. Uncommon signed (her first book, An Eagle to the Sky, is common signed, but her other books seem the opposite). Laid in are several clippings about Hamerstrom and a book event from The Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin. Also a sweet retro Forest Service bookmark (see photo).

Strictly for the Chicken is Hamerstrom's second memoir and shares her adventures (and her sense of humor) in field biology with her husband as they studied prairie chickens in Wisconsin. She broke away from an elite--and as she saw it, effete--background in Boston (the cover photo appears to be her at a kind of debutant society occasion as a teenager) to become an important woman in ecology and conservation, the only woman to earn a graduate degree from Aldo Leopold (who encouraged her toward those chickens).  Ultimately she was the author of a dozen books and more than 150 scientific papers. She twice won the Wildlife Society Award. With her late husband Frederick, she also won the 1971 National Wildlife Federation Award for Distinguished Service to Conservation, and she is a member of the Wisconsin Writers Hall of Fame. See her New York Times obit for more.

A near fine book with light bumping to corners in a very good or better jacket with some subtle fading to spine. Previous owner's signature and date at the top of the front free endpaper.