The Valley of the Second Sons: Letters of Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell, a Young English Naturalist, Writing to His Sweetheart and Her Brother about His Life in West Cliff, Wet Mountain Valley, Colorado 1887-1890.

Longmont, CO Pilgrim's Process, 2004. Paperback First Edition Thus [2004], Second Printing. SIGNED AND DATED BY THE EDITOR. Very Near Fine in Wraps: shows only the most minute indications of use: just a hint of wear to extremities; mildest rubbing. Binding square and secure; text clean. Very close to 'As New'. NOT a Remainder, Book-Club, or Ex-Library. Large, Squarish 8vo. 567pp. Edited by William A. Weber. First Edition Thus [2004], Second Printing. Trade Paperback. Valley of the Second Sons provides a delightful insight into pioneer days in Colorado and of one of America's greatest naturalists, and a valuable look at a period when science and education were at their earliest stages in the pioneering days of the American West. Cockerell speaks to us as one galvanized by a passion for nature, beauty, and understanding. Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell (1866–1948) was an American zoologist, born at Norwood, England, and brother of Sydney Cockerell. He was educated at the Middlesex Hospital Medical School, and then studied botany in the field in Colorado in 1887–90. Subsequently he became a taxonomist and published numerous papers on the Hymenoptera, Hemiptera, and Mollusca, as well as publications on paleontology and evolution. Between 1891 and 1901 Cockerell was curator of the public museum of Kingston, Jamaica, professor of entomology of the New Mexico Agricultural Experiment Station. In 1900–03 he was instructor in biology at the New Mexico Normal University; in 1903–04 curator of the Colorado College Museum; and in 1904 he became lecturer on entomology and in 1906 professor of systematic zoology, at the University of Colorado, where he worked with Junius Henderson in establishing the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History. During World War II he operated the Desert Museum in Palm Springs, California. Cockerell was author of more than 2,200 articles in scientific publications, especially on the Hymenoptera, Hemiptera, and Mollusca, and on paleontology and various phases of evolution, plus some 1700 additional authored works, including treatises on social reform and education. He was one of the most prolific taxonomists in history, publishing descriptions of over 9,000 species and genera of insects alone, some 6,400 of which were bees, and some 1,000 mollusks, arachnids, fungi, mammals, fish and plants. This includes descriptions of numerous fossil taxa, such as the landmark study, Some Fossil Insects from Florissant, Colorado (1913). The editor of these letters is, like his subject, a "compleat naturalist." Weber has been an ornithologist, botanist, amateur actor, tenor, recorder player, reader to seniors, explorer, and especially interested in Colorado’s plants and their discoverers. For a short time, he and Cockerell were colleagues. SIGNED AND DATED BY THE EDITOR.