Rating: 
Summary: Bible of Amphibians and Reptiles of this region
Review: This book was my bible as a boy. For anyone who enjoys watching small creatures in their natural habitats, the life-histories of amphibians and reptiles can be very enjoyable. This book is educational and extremely comprehensive. Even after moving to Europe, I kept my copy of this book, purely for sentimental value (none of the species from back home are to be found over here). The book is written for those who want a lot of information, yet it is accessible for anyone from a very inquisitive boy or girl, through to university students who want to identify species in the wild. (I know, I used my copy from the age of ten to twenty-five on countless field trips and excursions.) It's sturdy and affordable, especially considering the amount of information it contains. There are many b/w illustrations within the text showing specific identifying features, and a nice set of colour and black and white plates. More useful than Audubon, if you like these peaceful little animals this book will be with you for a long time.
Rating:
Summary: Everything a field guide should be!
Review: This is the best field guide I've had for herps. The layout is typical; there are color plates of the species and some written commentary and advice on field herping in the front of the book, followed by species accounts and range maps. Fairly typical layout. However, the way in which subspecies were handled is new, at least to me, and incredibly practical and useful. Those subspecies that are readily distinguishable in the field are given full seperate entries and individual range maps, which is particularly nice with certain large species groups (milk and king snakes, Pitouphis, etc.)
My only complaint, and it is minor, is that the taxonomy is old and very conservitive, even given when this book was published. Pitouphis is treated as monospecific genus in the book, whereas it's currently regarded as having several species, and Elaphe is still used for a good many of the colubrids that have since been reassigned. This, however, has little bearing onto the practicality of this field guide, or it's usefullness for ID'ing animals. It's really the best done reptile field guide I've seen, and if you herp the eastern and/or central part of North America, it's a must have. The layout is logical, the subspecies are handled well, the color plates are excellent, and the book is solid enough to actually be used in the field. This continues the Peterson tradition of great reptile guides, and actually improves on it.
| 
