Post by timmsyrj on Jan 30, 2015 20:29:53 GMT
Nomad, the name Margaret Fountaine rang a bell, I'd read her name somewhere and I've just found it in the book "The pursuit of moths and butterflies" by Patrick Matthews 1957 Chatto and Windus, London chapter nine is called "A butterfly summer in Asia Minor" by Margaret E. Fountaine the chapter was taken from The Entomologist. 1904. I've not read this book for quite some time so I'm not familiar with what's written, there is also chapter called "The Aru Islands, Macassar and Batchian" by Alfred R. Wallace. Chapter one " Butterflies" is by Vladimir Nabokov.
There was also a rich family near me many years ago who lived at Calke Abbey in Derbyshire, owned by the Harpur-Crewe family, Sir Vauncey Harper-Crewe (1846-1924) 10th and last baronet collected anything that moved, some of his collection was sold off to pay death duties by his eldest daughter Hilda, she was succeeded by her nephew who died in 1981 leaving death duties of £8m ( the estate was worth £14m) so the house went to the national trust in 1985. When they eventually decided to do something with it and opened it up to the public they descovered locked up in 2 upstairs rooms an enormous natural history collection with supposedly 2.5 million insect specimens, cabinets full of stuffed birds and mammals and hundreds of animal heads on the walls, most of these are still there I believe, I've not been but I think I might have to visit and report back at some point.
Annoyingly I collected in the woods on the estate when the place was derelict as it was only a 30min bike ride from my parents, I was 14 when I first found the woodlands there, had I known that collection was in there I would probably have gone a little more often, they probably wouldn't have found so many specimens then, just a 14 year old lad, cycling like mad with 4 drawers strapped to his back, does derelict mean "finders keepers".
Rich
There was also a rich family near me many years ago who lived at Calke Abbey in Derbyshire, owned by the Harpur-Crewe family, Sir Vauncey Harper-Crewe (1846-1924) 10th and last baronet collected anything that moved, some of his collection was sold off to pay death duties by his eldest daughter Hilda, she was succeeded by her nephew who died in 1981 leaving death duties of £8m ( the estate was worth £14m) so the house went to the national trust in 1985. When they eventually decided to do something with it and opened it up to the public they descovered locked up in 2 upstairs rooms an enormous natural history collection with supposedly 2.5 million insect specimens, cabinets full of stuffed birds and mammals and hundreds of animal heads on the walls, most of these are still there I believe, I've not been but I think I might have to visit and report back at some point.
Annoyingly I collected in the woods on the estate when the place was derelict as it was only a 30min bike ride from my parents, I was 14 when I first found the woodlands there, had I known that collection was in there I would probably have gone a little more often, they probably wouldn't have found so many specimens then, just a 14 year old lad, cycling like mad with 4 drawers strapped to his back, does derelict mean "finders keepers".
Rich