National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American ... (ISBN 0679446311)

Amazon.com Review:
Consider the lynx, a medium-sized cat of boreal regions of North America, "a solitary animal, associated with the opposite sex only during mating." Consider the Oldfield mouse, Peromyscus polionotus, once abundant in abandoned fields and beaches from South Carolina to northern Florida. These are but two of the 390 species covered in this densely informative, well-illustrated guidebook to the mammals of North America, with photographs keyed to textual descriptions that cover a given animal's physical features, range and habitat, breeding characteristics, and behavior (and, helpfully, that list other animals with which it might be confused). This easy-to-use handbook makes a superb addition to any naturalist's library. --Gregory McNamee

Great as always:
If you have seen any of the other Audobon Society Books, you know how good they are. They provide the necessary information on kinds of animals I've never even heard of. I like that the book includes color photographs as well.

informative:
All of the National audubon society books are very informative and handy everyday reference guides.

indispensible for any naturalist's library:
As with all the Audubon Field Guides, so too with this one - it is well made, with good binding and a durable leatherette cover; the index is well organized with links to the color plates; and the color photos are the best of any of the field guides. The descriptions, albeit way too brief, are concise and straight forward. There are 390 mammal species covered - range and habitat, behavior patterns, and track illustrations round out the textual information. This edition was updated in 1996, so it's not as dated as some of the other Audubon guides. Although the #1 deficiency of these guides is the inadequate summaries (the details really need to be fleshed out), these guides are on the whole better than the Peterson and Stokes guides. This volume has its place in any serious naturalist's library. Extracts: A Field Guide for Iconoclasts The Cloud Reckoner

These things are addictive.:
I love these field guides! The photographs are fantastic, and are easy to navigate for quick identification. We enjoy looking at these books even when we aren't out scouting for new things to identify.

Beautiful but SHALLOW!:
I don't know why the individuals who gave 5 stars, did so. The most beautiful, striking part of this book is the photographs. They're great!! hands down. However the narration on each animal just follows 8 basic formatted questions, Range, Size, offspring, Etc.; definitely necessary info but it's very shallow to stop there. Besides a few scattered phrases there is very minimal specific,unique info regarding an individual mammal that any animal lover would've expected to find even some basic stuff! The narration is definitely overly general and vague. THEY created a template and just filled it in. I expected alot more. I see that there are other books that have much more info but pictures? "fahgetta- battit" (these are hard to beat!) I guess you need both. It was definitely an improvement over past Audubon books. I wouldn't buy another Audubon guide online but rather in store & see for myself. I know there's only so much space in 1 book but ITS VERY SHALLOW!