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Millennium Atlas of Butterflies in Britain and Ireland edited by Jim Asher
and others, Oxford University Press, £30, ISBN 0198505655

IT’S easy to get depressed when you leaf through this handsomely produced
atlas. Butterflies are having a hard time in the British Isles, and the maps
show how the populations of many species have declined or even collapsed since
the previous butterfly atlas was published by Oxford University Press in 1984.
Take the high brown fritillary: once a widespread and locally common species
throughout much of England and Wales, today a mere 50 colonies remain.

Why is this happening? Loss of habitat and the effects of agriculture on the
environment are probably responsible for the high brown’s plight, and that of
other butterflies. The charity Butterfly Conservation coordinates a national
programme to save this endangered species. There is cause for optimism—the
decline seems to have been halted, though not reversed.

Butterfly conservation was the moving force behind the production of the
Millennium Atlas of Butterflies in Britain and Ireland, which is based on
five years of fieldwork between 1995 and 1999 by thousands of volunteers. The
result is a beautifully illustrated reference work for anybody with an interest
in Britain’s butterflies, their status, ecology and conservation.

And there’s good news, too. Butterfly enthusiasts will be delighted to
discover that not all our native species are declining: several, including the
orange tip, brimstone and ringlet, are spreading north. An unexpected benefit,
perhaps, of global warming?