Among the many practitioners of environmental writing in the United States today, Robert Michael Pyle stands apart. He is first and foremost an accomplished scientist, highly regarded as one of the world's leading experts on butterfly conservation. From this base of knowledge about the Lepidoptera, Pyle has acquired insight into the rest of the insects, birds, and practically all other fauna, along with having gained proficiencies in other disciplines, particularly botany and geography. Thus, he has arrived at an intimate understanding of the natural world through rigorous scholarship and systematic study of ecological science, not simply through an affection for nature writing nor from merely appreciative yet uncritical observation of the environment. Second, he is decidedly oriented to the outdoors, and his written statements are based on recorded field observations, not armchair musings or classroom rhetoric. In this regard, Pyle perpetuates a tradition established by the finest exemplars...