Handbook of Frogs and Toads of the United States and Canada

Book excerpt: The preeminent naturalists Albert Hazen Wright and Anna Allen Wright spent years assembling the wealth of material on frogs and toads appearing in this widely used handbook, the third edition of which was originally published in 1949. With abundant black-and-white photographs, colorful descriptions, journal notes from the field, and excerpts from the literature, their personalized natural history emphasizes amphibians observed in the wild. In a foreword to the 1995 paperback edition, Roy McDiarmid, a foremost specialist on frogs and toads, brings the book into historical perspective and supplies information to bring it up to date. Accounts of more than 100 species and subspecies cover such topics as common and scientific names, range, habitat, size, and general appearance, as well as color, structure, voice, and breeding. Separate keys are given for secondary sexual characteristics, eggs, tadpoles, families, and species. Generous quotations from the Wrights' field journals give the reader a sense of the problems and satisfactions of their work.