BOOKSHELF

THE ORCHID THIEF By Susan Orlean (Random House, 1999; $25; 282 pp.)

On a trip to Florida in the mid-1990s, journalist Orlean--now a staff writer for the New Yorker--happened on a newspaper account of four men arrested for stealing rare orchids. Her book investigates the incident and weaves a vivid tale of Seminole Indians, groves of carnivorous plants, strip malls, and theme parks "toasting together under the same sunny vault of Florida sky."

THE ROSE'S KISS: A NATURAL HISTORY OF FLOWERS By Peter Bernhardt (Island Press, 1999; $24.95; 250 pp.; illus.)

Flowering plants evolved 145 million years ago and since then have developed a panoply of colors, scents, and intriguing mechanisms to attract pollinators--from cockroaches, flies, and moths to parrots, hummingbirds, and bats. Botanist Bernhardt explores the natural history of the "living factory" of the blossom.

CATESBY'S BIRDS OF COLONIAL AMERICA Edited by Alan Feduccia (University of North Carolina Press, 1999; $24.95; 208 pp.; illus.)

EMPIRE'S NATURE: MARK CATESBY'S NEW WORLD VISION Edited by Amy R. W. Meyers and Margaret Beck Pritchard (University off North Carolina Press, 1999: $60 cloth: $24.95 paper: 293 pp.; illus.)

In the course of two journeys to Britain's American and West Indian colonies during the the early eighteenth century, English naturalist and illustrator Mark Catesby (1682-1749) significantly influenced the development of art and natural history in America.

WAITING FOR APHRODITE: JOURNEYS INTO THE TIME BEFORE BONES By Sue Hubbell (Houghton Mifflin, 1999; $24; 242 pp.; illus.)

In her sixth book, Hubbell gives equal time to the exploration of "little things" (sea slugs, millipedes) and such broad topics as the evolution of life on the planet. The author also chronicles more personal developments in her own life and in the lives of other naturalists.

THE HIDDEN FOREST: THE BIOGRAPHY OF AN ECOSYSTEM By Jon R. Luoma (Henry Holt, 1999; $22; 228 pp.)

Science and nature writer Luoma examines the web of life in the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest, a largely untouched, sixteen-thousand-acre old-growth parcel within Oregon's vast Willamette National Forest. The Andrews forest is the subject of a long-term, multidisciplinary study begun in 1970--the first of its kind.

LIFE IN THE TREETOPS: ADVENTURES OF A WOMAN IN FIELD BIOLOGY By Margaret D. Lowman (Yale University Press, 1999; $27.50; 232 pp.; illus.)

Botanist Lowman had not intended to do pioneering work in forest canopies hundreds of feet above the ground. Seeking answers to questions for her dissertation about leaf-growth dynamics, however, she started climbing trees in an Australian rainforest. She writes about the challenges of being not just an "arbornaut" but also a woman scientist and a single parent.

OUT OF THE CRATER: CHRONICLES OF A VOLCANOLOGIST By Richard V. Fisher (Princeton University Press, 1999; $24.95; 179 pp.; illus.)

Although Fisher, a professor emeritus of geology, assures us his book is not a scientific document, he does introduce us to the parlance of volcanology. He also gives an informative personal account of "walks and talks with some of the volcanoes that I have studied, visited, climbed, or contemplated" during his more than forty years in the field.

GREEN ALASKA: DREAMS FROM THE FAR COAST By Nancy Lord (Counterpoint, 1999; $22; 170 pp.; illus.)

One hundred years ago, the Harriman Alaska Expedition assembled artists, naturalists, writers, and scientists to explore Alaska on a luxuriously outfitted 250-foot steamer. Lord, who lives and fishes in southern coastal Alaska, retraces the ship's route, juxtaposing present-day scenes with those recorded by such expedition members as conservationist John Muir and photographer Edward Curtis.

LETTERS FROM YELLOWSTONE By Diane Smith (Viking, 1999; $23.95; 240 pp.)

In the spring of 1898, a medical student (and passionate plant hunter) wangles her way into a Smithsonian expedition to survey the flora of Yellowstone National Park. The novel, told entirely through letters, portrays the country's--and the world's--first national park and the competing interests of scientists, naturalists, tourists, railroad barons, Native Americans, and the U.S. cavalry.

APPOINTMENT AT THE ENDS OF THE WORLD: MEMOIRS OF A WILDLIFE VETERINARIAN By William B. Karesh (Warner Books, 1999; $27; 378 pp.; illus.)

Karesh, founding director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's international Field Veterinary Program, is a fund of stories--animal, vegetable, and human. He can be found treating a wounded okapi in the Congo, collecting blood samples from peccaries in Bolivia, or performing skin biopsies on orangutans in Borneo.

The books mentioned in "Natural Selections" are usually available from the Museum Shop of the American Museum of Natural History, (212) 769-5150.

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