Many is the time I’ve called up Mark Avery’s blog on a Sunday and found not just one freshly published book review, but two. However today is the first time I can recall discovering one and a half.
Mark and a Half
book
Much Ado About Mothing
In a little known early draft of “Much Ado About Nothing,” Shakespeare depicted Beatrice as an avid amateur lepidopterist with a particular interest in moths. Consequently, she would have well known “of old” the intricately camouflaged Jade Hawkmoth (Daphnis hypothous) which can quickly disappear to the observer the moment it lands upon a patch of foliage.
National Audubon Society Birds of North America
Surpassing 900 pages as it does in order to contain the “more than 800 species” of birds presented in its species profiles, “Birds of North America” is a much weightier tome than its series sibling, “Trees of North America.” Not surprisingly, it is not by any means a field guide but rather a reference guide – a role it can be expected to play reasonably well for general readers who would like an attractive, extensively illustrated reference guide around the house.
National Audubon Society Trees of North America
While the National Audubon Society has a long and justly respected name in the world of natural history books, the history of these books themselves has been a bit – shall we say – “up and down.” Those sufficiently long in the tooth (such as myself) may well remember the well-crafted volumes by such authoritative authors as Richard Pough, with their well-wrought and thorough yet never prolix text, finely detailed black & white illustrations, and in later editions even central color plate sections. Then of course, there was that later series…