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Good Luck Frank!
Frank Gibbs, one of our founding members, has accepted a position in Manhattan, Kansas. While I am sure he will keep us in his thoughts, he won’t be able to attend our meetings in the future.
It was at Frank’s instigation that this little organization got off the ground in the first place. After a visit to a butterfly garden in Florida while on vacation, he came back all fired up about the Flying Flowers and wanted to start a local club. One dark and cold evening in March of 1994, Frank and I met with Jennifer Moore (the landscape architect who designed the butterfly garden at Botanica) to brainstorm the possibilities. An organizational meeting was held later that spring and we were off!
We wish Frank and his family all the best in their new situation. Maybe he will spark another butterfly club in Manhattan and someday we will be having joint field trips!
Butterfly Gardening Book is Revised
BOOK REVIEW
Perhaps the classiest book on Butterfly Gardening came out ten years ago. It was a co-production of the Xerces Society and the Smithsonian, and was published by Sierra Club Books. A second edition was published in 1998, and your humble editor received a review copy.
Those familiar with the first edition know that it is lush with full-color photographs and contains about 12 chapters on everything from basic butterfly biology and ecology to garden design, photography, butterfly watching and even (gasp!) moths.
The second edition retains most of the content of the first. A new introduction from E. O. Wilson has replaced the original one. Two chapters focusing on native pollinating insects and invertebrate predators have replaced the chapter on "Wildflowers in the Planned Landscape". More chapters means more stunningly beautiful photos also. All in all, the book has grown by about 40 pages, making it an even better resource than it was originally.
It is too late for Christmas, but this book will be a welcome addition to the bookshelf of any butterfly gardener or enthusiast. So, invent another special day if you want to and give someone (maybe yourself!) this excellent book. The cover price is $24. Here are its particulars.
Butterfly Gardening– Creating Summer Magic
in Your Garden
Xerces Society/Smithsonian Institution
Sierra Club Books, 1998
ISBN # 0-87156-975-2
Bug I.D. Guides – Digital and Printed
Insect identification can be very challenging because there are about 90,000 different kinds of insects living in North America alone!
The good news is that - by far - the majority of the insects fall into just a few easily recognized orders. The bad news is that we are still talking about over 80,000 species! And since they go through metamorphosis, you may encounter a larval or nymphal stage of a species, and then what do you do? The answer is that you need an identification guide, and The Young Entomologists Society (YES) has a good one.
YES is an organization that is probably familiar to many reading this. If you haven’t heard about it, then you are missing out on a great resource for basic bug activities of all kinds regardless of whether you are interested in identifying insects, collecting them or keeping them in captivity.
The YES Insect Identification Guide, now in its 4th edition, is an 8 ½ x 11 booklet that is 70 pages long. It is divided into three sections:
It is reasonably priced at $8.95 + $3.50 S&H and may be had from:
Y.E.S.
1915 Peggy Place
Lansing, MI 48910-2553
(517) 886-0630
Also available from YES is a digital insect guide. This comes on two floppy disks (PC format) and sells for $24.95. It is not an I.D. guide, however, since it has no keys. Rather, it serves as an easy way to browse through the different types of insects and learn more about them.
It installs completely on your hard drive. Navigation within the program is easy. Each of the 90 families covered has a photo or line drawing of a representative species and a standard text entry with much more information than is in the printed guide.
Compared to some of the insect CD-ROMs that are available, it’s pretty clunky, with poor photos, no video and a plain text style. Its best feature in comparison to the CD-ROMS is its focus on North American insects only rather than all insects everywhere. Hopefully, YES will modernize the digital guide in the future and make it both more attractive and more useful.
In a future issue of the Snout I will try to review some of the Insect CD-ROMS that are available.