36 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Still the best, but could have been so much better, 31 Aug 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Colour Identification Guide to Moths of the British Isles (Macrolepidoptera) (Hardcover)
In some ways this edition is better than the old: more species, better text, a few old errors cleared up. But in many ways the book has got worse: the reproduction in my copy is worse than in the first edition (they still can't do green); the new species are stuck on the end rather than integrated; and there has been no attempt to make the book easier to use. Cross-referring from plates to text is as annoying as ever, and there still isn't any more information alongside the plates; There would have been space to include flight period, food plant and abbreviated range information. But no. This is a case of a publisher taking the easy way out - there's little really to encourage purchasers of the first edition to upgrade.
Skinner's still the best moth field guide for the UK, but looking at other insect field guides - not to mention bird field guides - shows what a wasted opportunity this was.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The number 1 aid to identification of macro moths in the UK., 21 Oct 1998
By A Customer
This review is from: Colour Identification Guide to Moths of the British Isles (Macrolepidoptera) (Hardcover)
This second edition of the definitive i.d. guide to the larger moths of the UK remains the 'bible' for the amateur moth enthusiast. With 43 colour plates depicting around 800 moth species including many variations, it combines (almost) all of the species of macro moths into one convenient volume.
Fourteen years have elapsed since the original edition, so it seems a shame that so little appears to have changed. There is now an extra plate depicting newly discovered species/subspecies, but the original 42 are unchanged.
The text has been updated to reflect new records and range expansion, but little has changed in the text to help identify the difficult species. Very few text figures have been added either.
Although it's nice to see the typographical errors have been fixed from edition 1, it's annoying to see others creeping in (which weren't there originally).
However, despite this, it's still the best book on the subject. Buy it now!
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Third edition and still not got it right!, 14 May 2010
This is a lovely book and has many good features but I can't believe that in the third edition of this book they still have to include a small page of stickers to correct errors in both the pictures and text. The problem of linking pictures to text is still the same as ever with the text first and the pictures all at the back.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No