The Bird-Winged Butterflies of the East

Abstract

IN the days of Curtis and Stephens, the late Mr. W. C. Hewitson was a diligent collector and observer of British insects of all orders, and likewise an ornithologist, who published several editions of a well-known work on British birds’ eggs. But the day came when he was to discover, as he says in one of his own publications, that a butterfly might be beautiful, though it was not a British species; and he became thoroughly infatuated with these beautiful things, to the study and illustration of which he devoted the remainder of his life. And this is how it came about, as he used to relate to those who had the privilege of the acquaintance of a kind old enthusiast, whose work was of immense value to the progress of entomology in its day, though he was unable to sympathise with or to appreciate the vast revolution in modern biology which many men with whom he was intimate—and men, too, not much younger than himself, with Darwin, Wallace, and Bates at their head—succeeded in effecting in a comparatively short time.