Catching Nature in the Act is about the emergence of natural history in early eighteenth-century France, viewed primarily through the life and works of René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur (1683–1757). The book is immensely readable: the author's prose is clear and warm, and the subjects' own stories, which are fascinating and recounted with a subtle humour, further transport the reader. The scholarly interventions are made lightly, but nevertheless this is a book that carries substantive intellectual weight.

Catching Nature in the Act opens with an important corrective to characterizations of early eighteenth-century natural history. As Terrall explains in Chapter 1, historians of science have portrayed pre-Buffonian natural history as removed from natural philosophy and experimental physics, being solely concerned with description and classification. But Terrall demonstrates that such assumptions belie a more complex, dynamic and intellectually engaged process. Early eighteenth-century natural history not only was experimental but also demanded a sophisticated intellectual engagement from practitioners.

Central to this development, we learn, was the figure of René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur. Réaumur, a member of the Paris Academy of Sciences, published extensively about natural history, especially insects. But Réaumur did not work alone. Indeed, Catching Nature in the Act is as much about the contributions of Réaumur's correspondents – who observed, experimented upon and produced representations of the natural world – as it is about Réaumur himself. Catching Nature in the Act, then, could be considered a prosopography of a disparate community of scholars united by their links to Réaumur. Their work constituted ‘a collage of scientific practices operating in different registers and on different scales’ (p. 2). The book exposes not only the doing of science, but also its collaborative nature in the early eighteenth century.

Chapter 3 shows that Réaumur's longest-standing collaborator was, in fact, a woman, Hélène Dumoustier. Reasons of propriety meant that Dumoustier refused to allow Réaumur to acknowledge her contribution publicly. Terrall's findings contribute to – but also complicate – existing work on gendered participation in eighteenth-century science, which has tended to assume that contributions by women arose through male family connections. Dumoustier forms an alluring exception: she was not related to Réaumur, and knew him because her mother leased an apartment within Réumur's Parisian hôtel. Her fascinating example underlines how contemporary social and cultural conventions might lead a non-canonical actor to conceal her or his participation from contemporaries – and subsequently from the historical record.

The close observation of nature practised by Réaumur and his associates involved active manipulation and experimentation. Terrall frames this as ‘problem-based’ science; she vividly evokes the puzzles that confronted early eighteenth-century naturalists, and the experiments they devised to unscramble them. Chapter 2 examines the daily routines and strategies used by these observers; those studying insects invariably brought their subjects right into the home – into studies, living rooms and even bedrooms. Chapter 5 discusses the highly controversial topic of spontaneous generation, as demonstrated by aphids and polyps. Terrall brilliantly evokes the multiple challenges faced by Réaumur and his counterparts, and their attempts to resolve the issues presented by creatures that slipped between taxonomic groups.

Réaumur depended on the observations sent to him by his many correspondents, and he deployed an assortment of textual and material strategies to recruit and train observers. Terrall's admirably close readings of Réaumur's voluminous writings, especially in Chapter 4, reveal how he sought to educate the French reading public, teaching them to ‘see nature differently’ (p. 83) through replicating his experiments. Chapter 6 discusses the collection of specimens, a practice central both to Réaumur's scientific research and to communicating his work publicly. The final chapter explores Réaumur's observations of birds, and underlines yet again his skill at inspiring his readers to practise science. By publishing his experiments on the incubation of eggs, Réaumur sparked off an obsession with incubation that eventually went global: he even received letters about incubation experiments from as far away as Bengal.

Catching Nature in the Act is thoroughly illustrated with images from Réaumur's corpus, which is now dispersed across Europe and North America. The illustrations underline the significance of natural history's visual record, a subject that has been attracting increasing scholarly attention. One regret, however, is that despite the book's emphasis on the importance of observation to Réaumur, the images are rarely discussed analytically. The light engagement with the visual record contrasts greatly with Terrall's meticulous readings of Réaumur's texts.

The seven chapters of the book demonstrate Réaumur's centrality to the emergence of natural history in early eighteenth-century France. By focusing on Réaumur's relations with the wider public, Catching Nature in the Act makes an important contribution to the social history of science, moving the scholarship away from major authorities and institutions, and emphasizing the significance to science of the emerging public sphere. The book does, however, give a somewhat misleading impression that Réaumur alone was responsible for encouraging and facilitating public participation in early eighteenth-century science. Other scientific luminaries and institutions are mentioned, but only briefly; there is little explanation of how Réaumur's corpus fit in to the wider scholarly context, apart from an epilogue outlining the antipathy between Réaumur and Buffon. It would have been helpful to have more discussion of the social and scholarly hierarchies that framed science in eighteenth-century France, in order to situate Réaumur's activities more fully within the contemporary social and cultural context.

Catching Nature in the Act abounds with wonderful vignettes about early eighteenth-century natural-history observation and experimentation. These are as fascinating for what they tell the modern reader about the natural world as for what we learn about Enlightenment science specifically. The book's major contribution is to the social history of science, but it also reveals much about the development of scientific practices, the emergence of new experimental techniques and theories, and the cognitive value of observing nature in the early eighteenth century. It is a beautifully written and intellectually stimulating read.