I would like to acknowledge everyone who feels that someone was listening in on their thoughts (no particular reason for this acknowledgement).
      I would also like to give credit where credit is due, and thank Hobart M. Smith and Sy Barlowe for their work on: A Guide to Field Identification: Amphibians of North America which helped me to identify the differences between Gulf Coast and Houston Toads.
      Nextly, I would like to acknowledge all those who think that this book will be another foray into the useless kind of Science Fiction/Fantasy that has supposedly brought the industry down to new levels. So, all you Harlan Ellison's of the world, you know who you are, might as well stop reading right here and put the book back on the shelf -or give it to someone whom you know might be interested.
      And last but never, never least, I would like to give so much appreciation, admiration, and praise to Anne McCaffrey for her Dragonrider books that if every dragon from every Weyr attached a rope to the sum total of it all in material form they could not even lift it one handspan off of the ground. I think my life would be useless -as if it isn't now- if I was never introduced to her writing, and I probably wouldn't be here now if I had never read her books.