Long had we waited… left to making the best guesses we could given whatever references we could find. Never really having the opportunity simply to sit and study the astonishing varieties of species, to learn the geographic locations where they might be found, or to improve our field skills.
Then, in 2012, Seabrooke Leckie and David Beadle gave us hope with their ground-breaking Peterson Field Guide to Moths of Northeastern North America; hope that one day, mothers (moth-ers, that is) all across North America might take the same delight in turning to a field guide for information the same way our sisters and brothers in the U.K. had been doing for years.
But as the years passed, all those of us in North America outside the northeastern corner of it began to grow restless. “Would there be another volume one day?” we asked, “And what area will it cover? Give us a sign, O spirit of Roger Tory Peterson, give us a sign!” we cried.
And lo – a sign was given; in the form of a padded envelope from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt that contained a copy of Peterson Field Guide to Moths of Southeastern North America, with a note indicating that it would be available this coming March. And the sound of rejoicing as heard throughout the library, and soon thereafter, throughout the land.
