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1959
Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society
11
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS TO THE NINTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE LEPIDOPTERISTS' SOCIETY
A quarter of a century has now elapsed since the time when I could claim with any justification to be a working Lepidopterist concerned with the systematics of the Rhopalocera. Though from time to time since then brief opportunities to return to this field have occurred, they have been rare. Under these circumstances I fear I cannot offer you an address of the kind to which you are rightly accustomed. With these few words of apology, let me turn to other fields.
An interest in lepidopterology arose early in the British Isles. I suppose the first Englishman for whom it can be claimed that he published a systematic synopsis of insects was Edward Wotton (1492-1535). This was included in his De differentiis animalium (Paris, 1552). Though his work is generally considered to be a compilation based upon much earlier "authorities" (e.g. Aristotle and others), careful perusal of his account of the insects shows it to contain at least a few personal observations. The Lepidoptera were included in the section dealing with "caterpillars and what develops from them." A much better known work is, of course, Mouffet's (Moffet) Insectorum sive Minimorum Animalium Theatrmn eventually published in 1634. The origins of this were contemporary with Wotton who, indeed, had some part in it, and it suffered many vicissitudes, passing through several hands, before being printed in London thirty years after Mouffet's death. The original manuscript is preserved in the British Museum, and the very handsome original title page (which was not issued with the published work) is reproduced by Malcolm Burr in The Insect Legion, and includes vignettes of Gesner, Penny, Wotton and Moffet, each of whom, and in that order, contributed to this outstanding work. To this period there also belongs one other great figure, namely John Ray (1628-1705), the brilliant son of a village blacksmith who renounced a career of the highest promise for the sake of religious scruples, and posthumously gave us as a result his Historia Insectorum. He might well be acclaimed as the 'patron saint' of the British naturalist; indeed to pursue the analogy, his name has already long been enshrined by naturalists in the works published by the Ray Society, which exists for no other purpose than the publication of annual volumes on the British fauna and flora. Publication, however, has already outrun the calendar for, though founded in 1844, in 1957 the one hundred and fortieth volume in the series was issued — a worthy monument.
Perhaps I might allude to one other seventeenth century figure, but for a very different reason. Lady Glanville is commemorated in the popular name of one of our rarest British butterflies, the Glanville Fritillary (Me-litcea cinxia), now exceedingly local and jealously watched over by the Insect Protection Committee of the Royal Entomological Society of London. Moses Harris, who was responsible for introducing the name, recounted at the same time the well known story of the law-suit brought by Lady Glanville's
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Riley: Presidential address
Vol.13: no.l
heirs to set aside her will on the grounds of insanity. That three hundred years ago such opinions should be current is perhaps not altogether surprising. But what should one think of a very distinguished judge who within the last quarter of a century held in a British court that the collecting and study of butterflies (by J. J. Joicey of the Hill Museum, in this particular instance) was evidence, if not of insanity, at least of some form of mental deficiency; or of the French spouse who, observing me and my son waving nets in the Pyrenees, remarked, on being assured that we were hunting butterflies, "Tiens! Mais ils ont l'air tout-a-fait intelligent!"
With the opening of the eighteenth century works began to appear of a more specialised nature. Albin's Natural History of English Insects (1720); Wilkes' English Butterflies and Moths (1747); The Aurelian (1766) and othe charmingly illustrated works of Moses Harris who, on one of the title pages describes himself as "Secretary to the Aurelian Society";
Dru Drury's Illustrations.....of Exotic Insects (1770-1782) ; Lewin's
Papilios of Great Britain (1795) ; Martyn's Psyche (1797) and Donovan's Natural History of British Insects (1792-1813) are examples. They are a delightful blend of art and science. A work of this period that is of particular interest to North American lepidopterists is the Natural History of the rarer lepidopterous insects of Georgia, by J. E. Smith with John Abbot. Petiver stands apart rather, and is largely a "carry-over" from the previous century, for his Gazophylacium is a dry methodical catalogue, of which the illustrations are not in the same class. His collection is in the British Museum (Natural History) and is the oldest extant entomological material of which I have any knowledge. The specimens bear numbers which correspond with those in the Gazophylacium, but many are now missing. O'f particular interest to American lepidopterists perhaps is the fact that among these missing specimens there was the (<plexippus" quoted first by Linnaeus in his list of references: "Pet. Mus. 58. n. 527". The number is still there, but not the specimen. Its presence might have helped in the protracted argument as to whether the American Milkweed or the Oriental species with the white band on the forewing should carry the name, an argument only recently settled by the use of the plenary powers of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature.
What shall we say of the next century's British lepidopterists? In the first fifty-years it produced Haworth (to whom we owe most of our English names, which are more stable than their scientific counterparts), Curtis, Stephens, the Doubledays, Edward Newman and Stainton, all first-class entomologists but yet not quite up to the standard of the stars of continental Europe, whom they tended to treat rather as 'authorities' and to follow rather uncritically. Leech and his particularly picturesque disciple Samouelle also adorn this period. There had been, as Moses Harris tells us, an Aurelian Society around the 1750's. Little is known of it, but scattered references here and there indicate that its spirit lived on, even if somewhat precariously, well into the next century. It is to Samouelle, whose relatively successful attempts to popularise entomology did nothing to increase his own
1959
Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society
13
popularity with the Trustees of the British Museum (who employed him) that we owe the foundation of the oldest entomological institution still extant in the British Isles. This is the Entomological Club, founded wth three other entomologists in 1826 and still flourishing in spite of many ups and downs. The number of members was soon increased to twelve and later limited to eight, and at that level it has remained ever since. They met in each other's houses once a month, they started the Entomological Magazine (in 1832) the first purely entomological journal to be published in the British Isles; they formed a library and collections; they appear to have been largely instrumental in founding the (now Royal) Entomological Society of London (1833) ; and there is no doubt whatever that for at least half a century they gave enormous encouragement to the study of entomology amongst a wide circle of Londoners. Their collections soon proved an embarrassment and were given away or sold, and by the turn of the century they had become mainly a social club, the nature of their meetings being somewhat ambiguously indicated by the following extract from the minutes " . . . . This very enjoyable .... meeting came to a close in the late afternoon when those guests who required it were conveyed to the station and the remainder left in their own cars." Why they were left in their cars is not stated! However, the Club could do much better than this. In 1911 they instituted the annual Verrall Supper, in memory of one of their members, a function which must be unique. Each year some 200 entomologists sit down together and over a meal and afterwards "talk bugs" with old friends they may otherwise seldom meet; no subscriptions are asked for, yet they come in so freely that, although the Club set up a guarantee fund, it has never been called on. Quite recently, in the hope of still further justifying itself and advancing the study of entomology, the members of the Club have set up a British Trust for Entomology in the hope of giving encouragement in fields not at present covered by existing organisations.
But I fear I weary you. When I started these notes I had, I confess, little idea where they would lead me, and indeed I hardly know now. Some day, perhaps, somebody will write a history of our pursuit as it developed in the British Isles. There is so much of interest in it. Why was there such an outburst of enthusiasm in the early nineteenth century, with even a weekly journal paying its way? Why, around the 1850's, did purely entomological societies spring up all over the country, to last a few years and then die? Who were the men who inspired these activities? Why have the robust polemics of those early days been lost to us? In the end, though, is it worth while to delve laboriously into the past, however fascinating, rather than to look to the future where so much lies still to be discovered? Good hunting to all of you, and one word of advice. When you discover new facts, publish them, don't let them die with you as is the reprehensible custom of so many otherwise excellent lepidopterists.
N. D. Riley British Museum (Nat. Hist.), London, S. W. 7, ENGLAND