SREL Reprint #1990

Review: Handbook of Snakes of the United States and Canada 

John R. Lee

Savannah River Ecology Laboratory. Drawer E, Aiken, South Carolina 29801

Conclusion: Overall, this book has few faults. Bogert (1957) and Jameson (1957) addressed the flaws in their reviews of the original printing. These include the relative brevity of the introduction, failure of the introduction to summarize some topics (hibernation, scalation, locomotion, relations of temperature to distribution patterns), lack of page numbers and ranges in the keys, and the lack of an included bibliography. The bibliography is the third volume of this series and soon went out of print following publication in 1962 by the Wrights. Luckily, it is available through the Facsimile Reprints in Herpetology series of the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles.
In the foreword, Campbell points out that this book has "aged well [and it] continues to be a valuable and useful addition to the libraries of professional and amateur naturalists." Given the fact that currently little more is known for some species than was related by the Wrights, I must concur with Campbell, and I definitely feel that those purchasing this book and its bibliography will gain far more in worth than what one pays for the series.

SREL Reprint #1990

Lee, J.R. 1995. Review: Handbook of Snakes of the United States and Canada. Copeia 1995:753-754.

This information was provided by the University of Georgia's Savannah River Ecology Laboratory (srel.uga.edu).