The Rev. Henry C. McCook spent years researching and writing his 3 volume set, American Spiders and their Spinningwork. The three volumes were originally self-published in 1889, 1890, and 1894, under the auspices of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia (where McCook was vice-president). Primarily covering the orb-weaving spiders, there is plenty of material on jumping spiders, wandering spiders, trapdoor spiders, and other species. This is one of the most thorough examinations of the natural history of American spiders, but due to its scarcity (only a limited number of volumes were originally printed), it is not well known by spider enthusiasts today. For the purpose of this reprint, the text and figures of all three volumes have been placed in Book 1. The color plates have been placed in Book 2.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another exceptional spider book!,
By Jeff Twain (Minnesota) - See all my reviews
This review is from: American Spiders and their Spinningwork, Book 1: Text and Figures (Paperback)
Where has this book been all my 40 years of studying spiders. I am enjoying it thoroughly. Would liked to have had it when I first started to study spiders about the age of 12. Will recommend it to anyone with the slightest interest in American spiders.
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Classical and Rare Work that Still Informs the Reader,
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This review is from: American Spiders and their Spinningwork, Book 1: Text and Figures (Paperback)
The Reverend Henry McCook was a well-known American naturalist and clergyman in the United States during the last half of the Nineteenth Century. He was a remarkable writer and his "American Spiders and Their Spinning Work" was a prodigious undertaking. The three volumes that were originally published privately (a total run of 250 copies) are now so rare as to be beyond the pocket book of all but the most well-healed book collector. Finally Coachwhip Publications in Pennsylvania has reprinted three of the volumes in a single soft-bound edition of text and figures and the color plates that made up part of Volume II and III in a separate (and very inexpensive) second volume. Although the taxonomy is quite out of date for many of the spiders described, McCook had a remarkable knowledge of the subject and covers not only web-spinning spiders (primarily orb-weavers) but some aspects of nearly all spider biology as it was known in the late 1880s and early 1890s. His descriptions of spider courtship include data collected by George and Elizabeth Peckham, who's primary publications on jumping spiders still serve as references to this day. The first volume in the current printing is over 800 pages long and the color plates and their captions take up another 50 pages. The first volume also has numerous text figures and the biological information is as fresh as it was when it come from the pen of the author. The publisher has done a great service for arachnologists and general naturalists by producing an inexpensive and well printed copy of this classical and nearly impossible to get work by an excellent naturalist.
I recommend this work highly and for the price one should also get the volume of color plates as well.
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