Preface to the CD Version
The CD version of Comstock & Comstock (1995) is an undertaking by this
biologist out of the great respect I have for the first author and his
artist co-author. This text, being a manual for the study of insects, is
very helpful in my own research on insect wing shapes, particularly since
Comstock took great pains to clarify the use of venation in understanding
the evolution of insects. As a 701 page text, this is also the
most ambitious undertaking of making a classical text available to the
public that I have attempted to date. The more than 200 pages
devoted to the Lepidoptera will complement my efforts to provide an
historical record of Lepidopteran illustrations. Figures 231 to 481,
though in black and white, are rich in the detail upon which
Lepidopteran taxonomy are based.
The technology of producing a CD version of a classical text follows in
the tradition of Dover Paperbacks which provided me at a young age with
some classics of insect and invertebrate literature such as Holland's
Moth Book and Needham's Culture Methods for Invertebrate Animals. I am
hoping that the hypertext treatment and addition of a modern indexing of
this current attempt will reinvigorate it as a resource for a new
generation of biologists.
Joseph G. Kunkel
Amherst, MA
November 17, 1997