Dobie's interest in nature, a strong corollary of his devotion to ranch life, influenced the work of subsequent writers. One was his close friend, Roy Bedichek, whose Adventures of a Texas Naturalist (1948) ranged far and wide in its depiction of natural lore, including memorable chapters on the northern mockingbird and chickens. Bedichek's letters to Dobie, Webb, and many other correspondents, collected in Letters of Roy Bedichek (1985), edited by William A. Owens and yman Grant, are one of the real treasures of Texas writing.

In the next generation John Graves became the heir of the Dobie-Bedichek vein of natural history and legend. His Goodbye to a River (1960), an account of a canoe trip down the Brazos River in the late 1950s, is one of the most honored books in Texas letters. Hard Scrabble (1974) and From a Limestone Ledge (1980) are substantive additions to the bookshelf of Texas nature lore. More recently, Stephen Harrigan has followed the Dobie-Bedichek line of close observation of man's interaction with his ecological environment in two collections of essays, A Natural State (1988) and Comanche Moon (1995). His two novels, Aransas (1980) and Jacob's Well (1985) also pursue ecological themes. Another follower of the naturalist tradition is Rick Bass, whose The Deer Pasture (1985) and Oil Notes (1989) provide scrupulous examinations of local conditions, of how men and women exploit or revere the earth. Dan L. Flores's Caprock Canyonlands: Journeys into the Heart of the Southern Plains (1990) won the admiration of ecologists and nature writers.

Don Graham