Collecting butterflies or books, that is the question ?
Dec 12, 2014 12:21:33 GMT
nomad, deliasfanatic, and 2 more like this
Post by mygos on Dec 12, 2014 12:21:33 GMT
My parents took me one day to the famous shop “Deyrolle”, that some of you may remember ? In fact it still exists, rebuit after a serious fire in february 2008, but the soul is not any more. As a Christmas present, I received from there all the necessary equipment to become an real entomologist : setting boards, pins, forceps, glassed boxes, cyanide glass jar, etc.
I started setting and classifying my butterflies and moths, rearing some from caterpillars encountered here and there. I paid my annual membership to Alexanor and went to the monthly meeting at the Paris Museum on the Wednesday evening. It is there I met all the famous Bourgogne, Herbulot, Luquet, de Toulgoët, Turlin, to name a few … I discovered the “Museum Library” (in fact a bookshop, but it is the same word in French) which was run at that time by Mr Thomas where I was spending my money in buying entomological books new and second-hands. Soon Jacques Rigout established his “Sciences Nat” shop, rue des Alouettes in Paris, before moving to Venette near Compiegne, where he was selling equipment and books.
To earn some pocket money in the 70’s, I use to set butterflies for Deyrolle and Madame de Fontenille (Eugène Le Moult widow). In payment, I was receiving some exotic butterflies that fascinated me …
It is around that time (I was 14 !) that I met Georges Jeannot, that many of you are familiar with. He was running a shop somewhere in east-Paris selling insects. He introduced me to many collectors such as Claude Moinier, the New Guinea explorer, Jacques Plantrou, the Charaxes specialist, to Hôtel Drouot where Michel Maignan was sometimes auctioneer for butterflies collection’s sales such as Stoffel in 1976 that lasted 2 days.
My collection contained at that time all sorts of families, mainly butterflies, and I decided to specialize on one genus of African Nymphalidae : Cymothoe Hübner ! Why ?, just because there was almost no literature, and therefore I could only name a few of them.
My friend Gilbert Lachaume (Drouot expert) sold all my other families I had in collection : many Achillides Papilionidae, African Charaxes, Ornithoptera, etc.
By the time my Cymothoe collection was getting larger and larger and I decided to write a monograph on them, therefore requiring to read every single paper that was written about them. All my saturdays were spent at the “Société Entomologique de France” to trace and borrow books that I used to photocopy at my father’s office on the weekends. You remember, it was the Agfa patent on chemical paper that was turning black if you left it on the radiator ! No scanners at that time …
Some of the older or rarer books were not given on loan, so I had to write and draw manually the Cymothoe extract from works such as Fabricius (in latin), Drury, Cramer, Hübner, to name a few …
I started describing Cymothoe such as Cymothoe collarti werneri from Rwanda, female C. owassae and C. indamora canui from Bioko, C. coranus dowsetti, C. coranus kiellandi, C. coranus murphyi, etc.
All my specimens came from collectors all over Africa, but as I was not collecting myself, it was sometime not easy as many wanted butterflies in exchange in families they were collecting for themthelves. I only went twice in Africa to collect myself : Cameroon in 1974 on Philippe Darge territory, and Ivory Coast in 1978.
It is around that period that I met Steve Collins as he was at that time living in Lyon in France. He came to see me where I live now in Touraine to visit my collection, and we made some exchange of C. adella from Sierra Leone he did not have himself and a pair of C. indamora canui paratype if I remember well.
This is where I live (picture taken in mid November this year in my garden)
In the meantime I had to make my family happy with a decent job to bring money for my 3 daughters and wife, so I had been selling coding equipment in the food, pharmaceutical and cosmetic industry, creating my own Company, agent for an English Company, now American. I am on the point of selling it after 30 full years of activity.
My collection meant a lot for me, and my wife and family had the instruction to contact Steve Collins for the transmission of my collection if anything happened to me ! He as always been my main competitor on the field and had the largest collection of Cymothoe that I new of, although they were some nice ones in Belgium …
When I realized around 2002 that I could not achieve everything I wanted to do, and my Cymothoe’s were not the only hobby I had, I decided to bequeath my collection to Steve. Internet was still pretty new and typing the name of Steve Collins, Nairobi, Kenya on Altavista search engine at the time, brought me immediately the ABRI web site where he was Director. I sent an email and received an answer almost immediatly asking for my mobile ? I think he came to see me 2 weeks later in France to start the discussion …
Anyway, the deal was signed and my collection is now at A.B.R.I. in Nairobi where I went twice to see how things goes there. This is the most incredible collection of African butterflies which contains 95% of known species and subspecies …
A.B.R.I. building in Nairobi
The aim of transferring my collection there was to concentrate the finest Cymothoe collection in one place so scientists from all over the world could study it, and I will carry on writing my bibliography on Cymothoe genus.
I then decided to replace all my old photocopies by the hard copy versions of all documents including the rarest.
I am now a very enthusiastic entomological book collector and lover, and along with Cymothoe books, I am trying to have every major or secondary works that have been published on exotic butterflies since the early days. That includes some magnificent hand-colored books such as from Cramer, Doubleday & Westwood, Drury, Dubois, Godart & Duponchel, Grose-Smith, Hewitson, Jablonsky & Herbst, Millière, Oberthur, Rippon, Seitz, Ward, etc.
This is my bookplate or ex-libris
To be better served, I became a professional antiquarian bookseller around 15 years ago to specialize progressively on entomological books, so I am now buying complete libraries and I am on first position to see if there is any interesting things for myself as one would guess.
Same as for you I believe, when I discover and get hold of something I haven’t seen before, I am very excited …
So as you see, book collecting also exist along with your hobbies !
Steve and myself presenting a Cymothoe plate followed by some pictures of my collection ...
A+, Michel
P.S. Thank you Nomad (alias Peter) for correcting my poor english
