www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

On Amazon at the moment it is half price at £12:50...I have 5 butterfly books, but if I could only have one this would be it...bargain!

Martin.

Thanks, Martin. I've ordered myself a copy.

Guy

One of the best books anyone could buy!

I'm considering buying this, is it true it has errors though? or am I thinking of a different book?

It does contain errors but if you don't have a copy of the old version (of which this is simply a repackaging) you should still get this book in my opinion. Its merits outweigh its faults. It seems to me it has simply been poorly copy-edited (or not copy-edited at all). So, for example, the maps for scarce swallowtail and southern festoon are switched, as are those of Spanish festoon and Eastern festoon. The maps also invent an entirely new butterfly, the false festoon. These errors are pretty obvious and more annoying than anything else. There are some errors introduced with the new identification points on the pictures - an otherwise excellent idea. I mentioned on another post that Zephyr blue, for example, is described as having certain marks which it is actually characterised by not having (as the text itself points out). Some of the pictures of green-veined white (in my copy, anyway) are all pixelated, as though they forgot to replace draft thumbnails with the real pictures at some point.

Since this is probably the best book on European butterflies in existence now the old version is no longer being produced (plenty of other excellent ones but if I only had one it would have to be Tolman) we should probably collectively make a list of errata so visitors to this site can correct their copies!!

Guy

Perhaps someone can sort out my confusion here.
I have a book - Collins Field Guide Butterflies Brtain Europe Tolman, Lewington.
It has no edition number inside. The cover has a portion of the wing of a Lesser Purple Emperor.
Looking on the web, similar titles have the same cover, but a part of a Peacock wing, an all black cover with a blue on it, another with a white cover with a Scarce Swallwtail, a Brimstone, two browns and a blue (small image sorry - no better ident poss by me!), another white cover with a red Collins band across the top and a PE and Speck Wood on oak leaves.
Mine (Lesser Purple Emperor) doesn't seem to have the errors pointed out by Guy, but also doesn't have identification pointers.
Help - which is which!

Roger

The book under discussion here is the black one with an Adonis blue floating across the cover (Called the Collins Butterfly Guide). I also have the original T & L, which has the purple emperor, speckled wood and purple hairstreak on the cover (the one you mention last). A later edition of the same book had half a peacock on the cover. The book T & L replaced, Higgins and Riley's Field Guide, had many editions, of which one has a swallowtail, large copper, gatekeeper and chalkhill blue on the front (plus Canary blue and DG frit). If you were looking at a thumbnail, that might be it, or there might be another edition of that with the butterflies you describe.

ANYWAY, to the best of my knowledge, all are out of print in English (still in print in other languages) except the (black) Butterfly Guide. It's in the same series as the Collins Bird Guide (which is magnificent but has some weird errors in the maps too) and Tree Guide (I don't know enough to judge it, but it's the best tree guide I own). I think Collins are on a run with these black guides - they just ran a little too fast with the butterfly one.

Guy

Guy
Thanks for that.
I was just looking at tiny thumbnails - hence the misidentifications

Roger

Ah! That thumbnail shows the American edition of Tolman, issued by Princeton! So your faithful guide dog didn't do such a bad job of the IDs!!

Guy

Thanks for that, that would be a good idea to make a list of mistakes to look out for, for beginners like me.

Hi Guy,

I was speaking to a friend of mine from Southern France, and he proclaimed that Britain is a laughing stock amongst European entomologists because the Collins guide is the best that we have available to us in Britain (outside of the top end stuff - Apollo etc...). He maintained that European field guides (by which he means those published in and pertaining to European countries) are far superior publications, in both quality, accuracy, detail and production values.

What are our thoughts...?

Felix.

For identification I am not aware of anything to beat H&R + Tolman (H&R supplies the descriptions!!). Both these books appear in various forms in other languages. For the detailed biology of each species in particular countries there are far better books - but then again, so there are in England. For Switzerland, this book is my Bible - a truly fantastic book (though you need another volume for the skippers):

http://www.abacuscity.ch/abashop?s=71&p ... il&sku=279

For France, this is marvellous too:

http://www.priceminister.com/image?acti ... d=48847539

(I'm not especially recommending those sites for buying them - they were just the first that popped up when I searched for the books).

I have been shown, but don't have, a very good German one too.

I'd be interested to know what other books people own. I've seen nothing particularly brilliant in Spanish yet.

Guy