Latest picture of colourful characters

Besides being the most detailed butterfly identification book I had ever come across, I became fascinated by the amount of background information in the several pages devoted to each species. Up to that time the majority of new butterfly books simply repeated what was found in older books.

In the 1880s someone wrote in a journal that the marbled white butterfly was extinct in Yorkshire, a myth still being repeated in books published up to 1975. In fact, the marbled white is common on the chalk grasslands of the Yorkshire Wolds and probable always has been.

As a refreshing change, author Jeremy Thomas delved into all the most recent scientific butterfly literature. He had also done a great deal of his own research. Although a reference book, I couldn't put it down. It was so readable yet so revealing about the life of each species. For instance, a green-veined white male flies up and down a hedgerow or a woodland ride looking for females which tend to remain static, but conspicuous. When he spots a lady he "lands nearby and showers her with love dust so potent that even we can smell its scent of lemon verbena". Then, during mating he smears another chemical over her body in an attempt to dissuade other males from having a go.

I couldn't wait to go out and begin looking at butterflies more closely, and when, soon after, I was invited to help record the distribution of Yorkshire butterflies to provide data for a national butterfly atlas, I leapt at the opportunity. One thing led to another, and being the person with the most free time, due to early retirement, I soon found myself further involved. The project, overseen by our Yorkshire Branch of Butterfly Conservation snowballed. First we began to produce annual reports to summarise our findings, then we decided we should detail them further in a book. We tried to do for Yorkshire what The Butterflies of Britain & Europe had done for the British Isles. It resulted in The Butterflies of Yorkshire written by a team of some 30 enthusiasts, (and still available – see website.)

Other regions of the British Isles have seen similar developments and many University departments, especially at York, have been encouraging further butterfly and moth studies. The amount of new information has mushroomed.

Unfortunately, the original publishers of The Butterflies of Britain & Europe only did one printing, and old copies which originally cost 16.99 have recently been trading on the second-hand market at 100. But at last, a new publisher has taken over and produced a completely revised and enlarged edition. Jeremy Thomas has brought it so up-to-date that it even includes a detailed account of last year's amazing arrival of Painted Ladies and the new theories about how that species is now thought to return to Africa.

Artist Richard Lewington has provided nearly 100 new paintings covering the stages from egg to adult of all our species, including two new ones not in the original edition. This is not a pocketbook to carry around, but a colourful and very beautiful book to consult at home. And coming full circle, not only has all our Yorkshire distribution information been incorporated into the maps, but The Butterflies of Yorkshire is to be found in the recommended reading list. I can't help wondering if that would still have been the case if my wife hadn't been given that book token.

The Butterflies of Britain & Ireland by Jeremy Thomas and Richard Lewington, British Wildlife Publishing, 24.95 hardback. The publishers make a donation to Butterfly Conservation for each copy sold.

Howard M Frost is Butterfly Conservation's voluntary organiser of butterfly recording in Yorkshire and can be contacted via their website, www.yorkshirebutterflies.org.uk where you can find the latest butterfly and moth news updated day by day.