Customer Reviews

A Field Guide to Eastern Butterflies (Peterson Field Guide)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The maps in this book are a useful feature, but they are not provided for many of the species. The colour plates are very disappointing, as they often show only one gender of the butterflies and also ignore various subspecies and geographical variations. As the plates are made up drawings, it is often hard to identify species using this field guide, and the reader is left guessing as only the most common variation is shown. The text is quite well done, but moreadditions and details can be made. This book is hardly good as a main field guide (I greatly recommend "The butterflies of North America: a natural history and field Guide" by James A. Scott -- by far the best single-volume guide to American Butterflies), but it is useful as a pocket book that is light and does not take up much space.

As an amateur watcher just wanting to know which butterflies were in my garden, I was somewhat disappointed. I spent a great deal of time trying to compare the butterfly with the poorly represented plates. The few pictures scattered through the book were better, but I found errors in the identification given for the picture and the identification given in the plate and one was even not listed on the page they gave (or no where I have yet to find). The range listed were difficult for me to know if this species was in my backyard and not every species had a range map. These errors I found in one whole afternoon while trying to identify only THREE butterflies in my garden. Some of the book I like, like some of the intro information, but I guess other books have this info also. I was frustrated.

For almost half a century, Klots' Guide in the Peterson serieswas the best general text for identifying butterflies ineastern North America. I suppose this new edition still is,but it is a real disappointment in many respects. Itperpetuates the old style of illustration throughout withmuseum- spread specimens, many of which do not look at all theway butterflies are seen in the field. Skippers (where help isalways most needed) suffer particularly from this - surely amodern guide should also show them in side view, with wingsdeterminedly clamped together, with the useful body detailsand colouring and wing postures noted. Various scales are usedwilly nilly - it is not helpful to someone who needs a fieldguide to show the Great Spangled Fritillary the same size asthe Meadow Fritillary, for example. Several of the speciesthat strongly grade south to north in shade are shown in onlyone, southern, version - a Canadian would be hard put torecognize our Wood Nymph from the illustration here.Many species have more forms than are shown - Spring Azure forinstance. Some species are much more prone to sun-bleachingthan others - beginners would find a portion of an unwornMourning Cloak wing without a trace of yellow left, forexample, an instructive illustration of this....Given the rapidly increasing popularity of butterfly watching,the market is wide open for a better field guide. This one isa desk guide, for those who still carry a cyanide bottle withthem.

Unlike some other reviewers I have always liked the Peterson guides best and this is no exception. The emphasis of the book is not simply on sight identification (which can be difficult at best) but also on a rounded education about the world of butterflies.

The first several chapters cover butterfly habitat, life history, behavior and other things helpful for the collector or student. The main chapters are divided by common names with each sub-heading giving both common and scientific names. The butterflies are described according to range, size, and habitat, and there is typically some discussion of the insects' identifying peculiarities.

This isn't the best guide for someone wanting to identity bugs in their garden - other guides have much better and many more photos - but for the general student this is the best.

I got this from my son who needed a field guide to take to the park and forests. He loves it and so do I. Before we had borrowed our local libraries' 1950 edition of butterfly field guild. What an improvement! Unlike some people we just love it. The pictures are easy to use in the open where you can just notice a few things before whats being observed takes off flying. Opler is very good at listing the most obvious ID factors for each species. And it fits great in a back pack!

While the author doubtless put a lot of work into this work I did not feel it came up to the standards of other Peterson handbooks. Perhaps it was the wrong book for what I wanted but I would have liked to see more on the larval and pupal forms of the butterflies than there was. Also I felt the organization of the book was a bit confusing and hard to use.

Richard Sallee

Teensy-weentsy photographs (of which there are few) and tiny drawings do not an identification tool make. Often, the verbal descriptions given for a butterfly do not match, nay, directly contradict the photograph or drawing included! The practice of providing a textual description on one page, a range map (if there even is one) on another, and yet a third page for the descriptive drawing make this a page-turning nightmare.

In short, take this book from your public library - don't waste your money on a very poorly done work.

The book and the service were just what I wanted. the book was a gift and arrive in time to be wrapped and put under the tree. That was great.

Excellent guide to the butterflies of the Eastern US. The guide goes over photography, butterfly habits, and collecting/raising butterflies. The drawings allow for easy identification of butterflies by displaying distinctive differences. I find the drawings to work much better than photographs taken in the wild. There is more information that can be added to book (larvae, pupae etc.) but given its size, it would be near impossible.

I have the 1960's edition of this book also. One thing that makes the Peterson Field Guide Series books so terrific is that they are updated every few years. Several "new to the USA species" have shown up in the past 40 years. Most have migrated here from Mexico.
All of the Peterson Field Guide books are beautifuly done. The color photos and drawings are wonderful, as well as the maps. I would also recommend that you buy the Guide to the Western species.