First and Last Record Query

Does anyone know how to grab only the first and last record of a query. I have a table named periods with two fields, period_id and period_name. The user will select a start period and an end period from a drop down list, assigning $start_period and $end_period variables based on the period id. If I run this query: Select period_name from periods where period_id between '$start_period_id' and '$end_period_id' order by period_id An array is returned which could include one or more records, depending upon the user selection. I would like to grab the first and last record in the array so that the final result would be to echo something like "This report is from $start_period through $end_period". Hope that makes sense ... Thanks in advance for any help. Randy Rankin