The duo of John Kricher and Kevin Loughlin have brought to eager naturalists a new extensively updated second edition of Prof. Kricher’s classic book “Galápagos: A Natural History,” a nearly five hundred page comprehensive and richly illustrated guidebook that both presents the natural history of the islands in a manner that is as applicable in the field as it is in the library.
When something is decreasing in quality, the common expression is that it has “gone to the dogs.” (As a dog enthusiast, I’ve never been particularly fond of this expression, but there it is…) However as the cover of the new second edition of the the Princeton Field Guide series’ Carnivores of the World has “gone from the dogs” of its first edition “to the cats,” can we interpret this as a sign that it has increased in quality?
One of the great treats of attending scholarly events is the presence of university presses and other academic publishers who – on occasion – will have with them a copy of a highly anticipated forthcoming book for examination. Such was the good luck I had recently at Entomology 2017 with the forthcoming second edition of “Garden Insects of North America” by Whitney Cranshaw and David Shetlar.
After twenty-five years any reliable breeding bird atlas is bound to require updating if it is to present an accurate picture of the given geographic region’s reproducing avifauna. Thus, editors Rodewald, Shumar, Boone, Slager, and McCormac set out to bring the original Atlas of Breeding bird in Ohio up to date with the most recent information available about the state’s birdlife – the result being the newly released Second Atlas of Breeding Birds in Ohio from Penn State Press.