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Post by nomad on Jan 19, 2015 20:13:39 GMT
The insect collections at the Hope department of Entomology at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History contains over five million specimens. Many of these insect specimens are of great historical importance. The extensive British insect collection of James Charles Dale [ 1792-1872 ] and that of his son C. W. Dale has the oldest known extant butterfly specimen. This specimen has a fascinating history. In 1702 a very rare migrant to Britain a female Pontia daplidice was captured in Cambridgeshire by William Vernon [ 1660-1735 ]. This specimen was purchased by James Petiver [ 1665-1718 ] one of the fathers of British entomology. Petiver gave the Pontia daplidice specimen the English name of " Vernon's Half Mourner " which was later changed to the Bath White when the butterfly appeared in a early piece of needlework executed by a lady of that city. J. C. Dale the wealthy squire of Glanville Wootton in Dorset incorporated the Pontia daplidice specimen into his collection. The Dale collection housed in over thirty cabinets of mainly British lepidoptera, coleoptera, hymenoptera and diptera was given to the Oxford museum in 1906. The Oxford Pontia daplidice specimen. The oldest set specimen known. Captured in 1702.
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Post by cabintom on Jan 19, 2015 21:22:32 GMT
Wow.
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Post by cabintom on Jan 19, 2015 21:23:13 GMT
1702...
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weymouthent
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Country: United Kingdom
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Post by weymouthent on Jan 19, 2015 23:49:38 GMT
I am glad to read of such interesting Entomological histories here and elsewhere on the Forum, As, I too am a fan of Entomological history, and I have visited the Hope Dept, in Oxford several times, including on one occasion to browse JC Dale's actual diaries, I was also able to acquire one of J C Dale & C W Dale's Entomological cabinets, the specimens in the formentioned cabinet were being moved to a more secure cabinet and the one that I obtained was the first to be emptied, The Dale collection was of course to continue to be kept separate, just in modern cabinets, the one that I bought was a small 7 drawer mahogany glass fronted cabinet, (and used to house the Dale's Arachnids) I acquired it about 7 years ago and in later years (2013) it featured in an article concerning Entomological Cabinets By Richard Jones, this was published in the Brit Journal of Entomology & Nat Hist during 2013. After I had renovated the Cabinet, I placed some of My historic Specimens within it, and they included many of the Extinct UK Species, Races & Vars including: Black-veined Whites, Green-veined Whites (Sulphurea vars) Large Blues, Large Coppers, Silver-studded Blues (Cretaceus & Masseyi subspecies)Large Tortoiseshells, Old (1905 to 1913) LW Newman specimens of Marsh Fritillary from Scotland, Ireland, Cornwall, Cumbria & Kent, this Kent race is long extinct and very distinctive being more yellow then anything else!, 2 specimens of the Extinct Grassington race of Scotch Argus, plus old English specimens of Chequered Skipper, Others of interest include some High Brown & Dark Green Fritillary's which used to belong to E B Ford, there are also a few Extinct Moths, Small Lappet, Transparent Burnet from Wales ect these moths include some from William Quebell, L W Newman and A J Whiteman.
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Post by nomad on Jan 20, 2015 6:26:55 GMT
Wow weymouthent. Owning an original Dalean cabinet. Your amazing series of specimens that you have placed in the cabinet have great historical interest, so hopefully we will be seeing some here with any data that they may have and your comments. I have seen extracts from J.C. Dale's diaries but have not read them myself. It is so good to have another here, that is especially interested in the history of the lepidoptera and the Aurelians. Great Post, thanks for sharing.
Peter.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 20, 2015 11:41:10 GMT
Wow Weymouthent, it sounds like you have some fantastic historical specimens there, would love to see pictures of those, I also love British entomological history and have many specimens from Newman, Frohawk, Hemming, Leech etc, it sounds from your name that you live in my favourite part of the world too, the good old isle of Portland where I have spent many fantastic holidays, a true heaven for the entomologist as is a lot of Dorset, maybe I could pop round next time I am down your way.
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weymouthent
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Country: United Kingdom
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Post by weymouthent on Jan 20, 2015 11:50:29 GMT
Here are a couple of the drawers from the Dale Cabinet, Unfortunately, the first drawer which contains the Black-veined whites ect, was to large to load, I will work on it and hopefully post it on here later today, in the meantime, I will try to add some of the others, there are seven in total five of which are relevant to this post, the other two, are Moths with text that needs amending! and My earliest specimens (1978) not really relevant historically, Cheers, Mick
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weymouthent
New Aurelian
Posts: 20
Country: United Kingdom
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Post by weymouthent on Jan 20, 2015 12:03:47 GMT
I clearly need practise in posting on forums!, here is another of the Dale Drawers :
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Post by nomad on Jan 20, 2015 12:55:50 GMT
Those are very fine historical drawers, full of rarities by some really famous collectors. Thank you for showing them. I am most impressed by the series of the extinct Maculinea arion eutyphron. You may have read my recent thread on that extinct Subspecies. I referenced a article by a Cotswold collector C. L. Chamberlain published in 1908. I see one of your M. arion was caught in 1910 in the Cotswold by a J. Chamberlain probably his brother. Also that is a very large and impressive L. dispar dispar caught in 1832 by Rev William Bree. Those Plebejus argus masseyi dates are very interesting, 1937, perhaps some of the last captured, it disappeared on the Westmorland mosses a few years later. A very nice series of A. aglaja and A. adippe by the great man himself E.B. Ford. Just wonderful.
Sometimes on Forums, we need to resize our images to insert them, in open and then paint and then saving them to add here.
Peter.
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Post by Adam Cotton on Jan 20, 2015 14:25:51 GMT
As a Windows user I use Microsoft Photo Editor (available in MS Office) to resize pictures, but any photo editing program can do this simple job. Always save a photo for posting in the Forum as a JPEG (.jpg file) as this format is much smaller than others.
Sorry I can't advise how to do it in a Mac, iPad or iPhone, but the principle should be the same.
Adam.
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weymouthent
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Country: United Kingdom
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Post by weymouthent on Jan 20, 2015 14:48:22 GMT
Here is the first Drawer containing Black-veined whites & Green-veined Whites of the Sulphurea var, you may notice my text here refers to them as citronea, My introduction to this var, was by those who mostly refered to it a "citronea" and the habit stuck, it has been a few years since I arranged these drawers, when I come to do it again I will update the names.
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Post by wollastoni on Jan 20, 2015 14:55:40 GMT
Splendid drawers weymouthent ! Thanks for posting them !
Could you please use latin names in your posts, because English names are not known outside of English-language countries? Thanks for us.
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weymouthent
New Aurelian
Posts: 20
Country: United Kingdom
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Post by weymouthent on Jan 20, 2015 15:07:35 GMT
Thank you for your kind comments and advice regarding uploading the images, Here is the last of the Dale Cabinet Drawers for this time, I will come back some time in the future with the Moth drawer after I have updated It's text,
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Post by cabintom on Jan 20, 2015 15:13:55 GMT
Great drawers. Thanks for sharing these!
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Post by wollastoni on Jan 20, 2015 15:25:57 GMT
Those 2 Pieris napi are CRAZY!
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