Review from BRITISH WILDLIFE Magazine, 2006. This is the full review - not just selected favourable comments.

BUTTERFLIES Butterflies of Europe.

New Field Guide and Key EUROPE Tristan Lafranchis

This book was written in English but published in France, and only now has it become easily available Britain. This is a photoguide to European butterflies which has several attractive features that should make it easier to identify butterflies in the field. First, the 1,300 colour photographs are of excellent quality and as far as possible shows topsides, undersides and both sexes. The pages are reproduced opposite the relevant text, and n the same scale for related species. Secondly, distinctive characters have been picked out, making it easier to compare related species. Thirdly, identification as been facilitated by simple keys and a text pruned to i.e. minimum of details necessary for accurate identification. The writer's aim is to enable you to identify every species in the field, in some cases assisted by what one hopes will be gentle squeezing to inspect le genitalia.

Butterflies of Europe invites comparison with the standard Collins Field Guide by Tollman & Lewington, reviewed here by Martin Warren back in 1998. Despite its glorious Lewington illustrations, the latter has severe drawbacks in the field, being micro-printed and word­ heavy, and where one is left floundering to find the all important distinctions between similar-looking blues, uppers and fritillaries. 'Lafranchis', by contrast, seems well tailored for field use. Identification is only a flick Nay, helped by some judicious colour-coding on the margin. The book has a slightly smaller range than Tolman, including all the Greek islands but omitting the Atlantic islands and North Africa. It also omits life-h­istories and most of the fine detail of local variation or example, Tolman includes five forms and two hybrids of the Chalkhill Blue, but Lafranchis only one common variety and one hybrid). On the other hand, unlike Tolman, Lafranchis does include genitalia drawings for critical species.

Although in general I prefer artwork to photographs field guides, the photos in this book do capture the habit of the living butterflies well. The distribution maps are not infallible: they omit the Chequered Skipper in Scotland and the recent discovery of Real's Wood White in Ireland. But while not everyone might agree with Lafranchis that 'Identifying butterflies is easy', this excellent book will surely make it that significant bit easier.

This is the book I would take on any European wildlife tour which included butterflies.

Peter Marren

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