Winter Search Party: A Guide to Insects and Others Invertebrates Hardcover - 1971

NY: Thomas Nelson Inc, 1971. First edition. Hardcover. Second printing, September 1972. Inscribed to no recipient on the title page: "The variety of winter adaptations of invertebrate animals is amazing and mind boggling. Helen Ross Russell." Uncommon signed. One has to love the very specific nature of this book, which is exactly as the title suggests: looking for insects in winter. Her third book following City Critters and Clarion the Killdeer. Russell is an important mid-century environmentalist, an early female biologist-conservationist and promoter of environmental education. She was a professor of biology and chair of the science department of what's now Fitchburg State College in Massachusetts. Many of her outdoorsy books were for young adults, but as the jacket says, this one is "an invaluable aid for the amateur collector ... [and] for the armchair naturalist."  A wide octavo in red-orange cloth with deep blue endpapers, richly illustrated by Viola Kohl Mohn on nearly every page in the wide margins. With bibliography and index. A near fine book with a few small spots and one modest dent on the upper text block face. In a very good price-clipped jacket with edge wear and small nicks, and a "Nelson Library Edition" gold sticker wrapping around lower spine. A few small chips to upper left corner of front panel.