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Post by Adam Cotton on Nov 14, 2021 9:35:17 GMT -8
I have some NE Indian specimens collected by R. E. Parsons during WWII, which I bought many years ago at Watkins & Doncaster.
Adam.
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Post by johnnyboy on Nov 15, 2021 22:07:47 GMT -8
I'm not surprised, particularly given the age of the specimen, that the collector is unrecorded.
It's always a bonus to have a provenance, like the Indian specimens Adam mentioned.
Thanks
Johnny
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Post by yorky on Nov 16, 2021 9:42:45 GMT -8
Here is one that does have the names of the collectors and famous ones at that, taken by the Pratt brothers in 1920 at the time of the Rif war, Graphium stressemanni  _ |
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Post by johnnyboy on Nov 16, 2021 21:04:21 GMT -8
Great specimen and data label, always good to have so much information and the old typeface print, in conjunction with the exotic location.Together with the reputation of the collectors, it all gives the butterfly that extra feeling of romance and intrigue.
Johnny
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Post by mothylator on Nov 26, 2021 2:44:09 GMT -8
Recently I was talking to Gilles Faravel about our respective separate experiences of collecting in Nigeria in the 60s to 80s, and unsurprisingly the topic arose of the tragic and brutal Biafran War of Secession (aka Nigerian Civil War 1967-9). My family was in Lagos throughout, at the opposite end of the country from the disputed “Igbo-land”, and fortunately (my father having a diplomatic pass) we were able to travel outside the Lagos City Curfew, often with John Riley, my entomology “grown-up friend” and mentor. Lagos was a considerably smaller city then than the sprawling conurbation it has become. We would travel at weekends to locations like Agege, Ilaro and Omo Forests, and further afield at times. Agege was an amazing place with intersecting habitats supporting over 340 butterfly species in a small zone just 23miles from Lagos. It’s all gone now, swallowed up by the unstoppable ravages of urban expansion. The Nature Reserve of Ilaro too is gone, the trees irrevocably cut down in a short orgy of corrupt greed and exploitation around the turn of the millenium. Among my 3 surviving drawers of Nigerian Hesperiidae which I caught during the Civil War, is the unmistakeable Abantis leucogaster leucogaster (Mabille,1890), the so-called "streaked paradise skipper".  We saw it in locally generous numbers, definitely in two or three waves from early July (the wettest time) to October (a month or so after the rains had ended). In the intervening 50+ years, relocations and a vicious attack of dermestid when my collection was in storage, have reduced my four voucher specimens to just two extant examples. Torben Larsen has some detailed comments in his 2005 book about the rarity of this species, in his experience. He first encountered it in…… oh yes, Agege, 1967!! We evidently saw more of it than he could in his short trips. It’s a simply stunning crisply marked butterfly of titanium-white and black velvet, flushed with gold at the wing bases. Gorgeous to see at rest, or mineral-licking from the roadside dirt, or nectaring at eye level (for an 8-10yr old). We had many butterfly adventures during the Civil War, but Abantis leucogaster is a wonderful memory. |
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Post by biscuit153 on Feb 18, 2022 22:30:35 GMT -8
I stumbled across this offering from an online auction site - see below for the item overview and link. I think it is remarkable that these were collected amid what had to have been quite difficult circumstances for Mr. Mitchell as he was a Japanese POW at the time. I would like to read his memoirs, but unfortunately they are out of print. Description * Lepidoptera. A mid 20th century specimen cabinet with butterfles and moths Lepidoptera. A mid 20th century mahogany specimen cabinet containing approximately 500 butterfly and moth specimens of Western Siam, collected by W.S. Mitchell, 15 graduated drawers with pin-mounted specimens, quite a few specimens now perished or partially disintegrated, many with typed captions, including Burmese Lascar, Blue Pansy, Common Sailor, Chocolate Albatross, Lemon Migrant, Great Orange Tip, Common Mormon, Common Rose, Great Mormon, Five-Bar Swordtale, Archduke, Striped Blue Crow, Malay Lacewing, Black-Veined Tiger, Blue Glassy Tiger, Common Birdwing etc, enclosed by single glazed door, height 115.5 cm x width 68 cm x depth 49.5 cm Footnote:
Provenance: Collection of William Scudamore Mitchell (1912-1987), advertising manager at Shell prior to the Second World War. During the war, Mitchell was sent to Singapore where he was interned by the Japanese, as a prisoner-of-war on the Burma Railway. His account of the experience was published in 1996: The Setting Sun, An Account of Life in Captivity under the Japanese.
William Mitchell's typescript note in the first drawer: "I caught these butterflies in various camps in Western Siam between 1942 and 1945, when I was a prisoner of war with the Japanese. I brought them back in folds of paper, preserved with some napthalene balls, which I bought in Nan Pong. I took them to Watkins and Doncaster to be relaxed and set in 1946".www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/Lepidoptera.-A-mid-20th-century-specimen-cabine-92-c-9CC42F5A50?utm_source=alerts&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=keywordalerts_test215 |
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Post by trehopr1 on Feb 19, 2022 0:17:47 GMT -8
Wow, that is indeed a wonderful, intriguing, and thought-provoking item which you have found.
Surprisingly, I think quite a few of the specimens still appear to be in decent shape and to imagine some of the stories that go behind each and every specimen and the conditions that they were collected under.
Too cool 😎...
Thank you very much biscuit153 for sharing all the wonderful images that go along with the unique providence which this collection holds !
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