内容简介：
To learn from nature, not about nature, was the imperative that took John Janovy Jr. and his students into the sandhills, marshes, grasslands, canyons, lakes, and streams of Keith County in western Nebraska. The biologist explores the web of interrelationships among land, animals, and human beings. Even termites, snails, and barn swallows earn respect and assume significance in the overall scheme of things. Janovy, reminiscent of Henry David Thoreau in his acute powers of observation and search for wisdom, has written a new foreword for this Bison Books edition. John Janovy Jr. is Varner Professor at the School of Biological Sciences, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and director of the Cedar Point Biological Station. He is the author of Back in Keith County and On Becoming a Biologist, also available as Bison Books.