The Aurelian Legacy - British Butterflies and their Collectors

Mike Quinn Mike.Quinn at tpwd.state.tx.us
Fri May 18 12:40:28 EDT 2001


Michael A. Salmon
The Aurelian Legacy
British Butterflies and their Collectors
With additional material by Peter Marren and Basil Harley

Publication Date: March 2001
  432 pages, 42 color illustrations, 162 black-and-white illustrations

Clothbound: $35.00  0-520-22963-0

http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9407.html


This entertaining and informative book traces the history of butterfly
collection in Britain from the seventeenth century, when the study of
natural history had its beginnings. Our knowledge of butterflies is the
result of four hundred years of collection and study. However, butterfly
collecting is a controversial subject today, and given the present state of
butterfly populations, indiscriminate gathering of specimens can no longer
be justified.

In addition to giving a history of butterfly collecting in Britain, this
beautifully illustrated volume describes the equipment used and gives brief
biographies of 101 deceased lepidopterists. The book is generously laced
with anecdotes and quotations, and includes many contemporary monochrome
portraits, accounts of selected species of historical interest, and an
appraisal of the effects of collecting and of current conservation policies.
Appendixes list all the British and Irish butterflies with their earlier,
often confusing, and sometimes fanciful vernacular names, and provide a
chronological account of entomological societies, publications, and
significant events in the canon of British entomology.

The Aurelian Legacy is a fascinating account of the men and women who have
made valuable contributions to our knowledge of British butterflies and of
their early and often complex history. It is not only a good read but also
an excellent reference source for current and future lepidopterists as well
as social historians.

Michael A. Salmon is an amateur lepidopterist who has made a special study
of butterfly variation in Britain. He has been responsible for saving a
number of historic collections now in danger of destruction from neglect and
decay.

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"A history of British butterflies cannot be separated from that of their
collectors, since our knowledge of them is the result of four hundred years
of collection and study. A mere fifty years ago many now uncommon species
were widespread and abundant - their subsequent seemingly irreversible
decline owing more to changes in land management and the environment than to
past collecting." 

"Michael Salmon, with his collaborators, provides a fascinating account of
the men and women who have made such valuable contributions to our knowledge
of British butterflies and of their early and often complex history."--BOOK
JACKET. Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All
Rights Reserved

ISBN 0520229630 OVERSIZE HARDCOVER
Cat# U86525
Published Price $35.00

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