The Life of the 19th century Entomologist Peter Bouchard.
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The Life of the 19th century Entomologist Peter Bouchard.
This article details the life of another of Britain's now forgotten entomologists, who was a well known figure in 19th century Britain. Many of today's professional entomologists spend their lives in the laboratory or the museum. Very few professional entomologists such as Peter Bouchard are able to spend the majority of their working lives in the fresh air of the countryside collecting insects. Many of Britain's more famous entomologists have been fairly well covered by different authors, and this is the first article that covers the known facts about this collector from humble origins, who in my opinion is no less interesting than his more famous wealthy gentleman contemporaries.
The British professional collector Peter Bouchard ( 4 April 1816- 1865) was of Huguenot descent, and born in Bethnal green in the East End of London. When he married in 1838 his occupation was a Hearth Rug Maker. In the census returns of England and Wales for 1861 Bouchard is listed as a naturalist and tobacconist. Although he visited well known localities for rare insects, Bouchard was prepared to explore new ground, travelling to Southern Ireland to explore the woods of Killarney, where he made the surprising discovery of the beautiful moth Leucodonta bicoloria. Unusually for those who made their living by collecting British specimens, he decided to travel into the jungles of New Granada (modern day Colombia), sending back to Britain two collections, containing many new species. The expedition to New Granada ended in tragic circumstances and Bouchard never saw his homeland again.
Living in Bethnal Green Bouchard made the acquaintance of a number of insect collectors who were Spitalfields Weavers, such as James William Bond and Daniel Bydder. Here he also met with Henry J. Harding who would also become a professional collector. Bond later became an early microscopic slide mounter, opening an opticians shop. Bouchard's early collecting forays were in localities near London, most of which have long since vanished under the urban sprawl of the our capital city. In Bond's recently discovered entomological journal he records meeting Bouchard on several occasions. The old Eagle Inn was frequented by those London collectors hunting insects in nearby Wanstead Forest, and on the 29 June 1828 Bond saw Bouchard there in the the company of Bydder and the collector Lehoop. Visiting the marshes of Temple Mills on the 17 May 1829, a rich collecting locality with its Typha and Osier beds, Bond met with Bouchard in the company of the collectors Barshaw, Brambley and Philips. Several days later in Wanstead Forest on the 24 May Bouchard was out hunting insects with the collector Gogay. On the 25 July 1830 after visiting Stratford March in search of the large caterpillars of the hawk moth Deilephila elpenor, Bond visited Temple Mills where there was quite a gathering of entomologists, meeting there Bouchard with George Bydder, his son Daniel, Harding, Brambley and Philips.
Figure 1. The Eagle 1832. The old coaching inn at Wanstead was much frequented by early 19th century London insect collectors
H. J. Harding recorded in the Zoologist (1847) that he and Bouchard visited the Deal Sand hills on the coast of Kent to collect specimens of the very local moth Eilema pygmaeola of the Erebidae (Arctiinae) family. Harding had discovered E. pygmaeola as new to science several years previously. Bouchard and others published notes of his captures between 1850 & 1865, in the Zoologist and the Entomologist's Annual.
Bouchard's first note by his own hand appeared in the Zoologist (1850) regarding the capture of the local Geometer moth Trichopteryx polycommata at Darenth Wood, Kent in April. A second communication to the Zoologist that year by Bouchard, regarding the capture at Darenth Wood of the Tortricid moth Phaneta pauperana Duponchel, 1843, reveals that he was a knowledgeable field collector, writing " I have taken a considerable number of this little known Tortrix in the above locality, on the 14th and 15th of April last. It has long been considered a great rarity, a single worn specimen existing in Mr Bentley's cabinet, and very few others are known. It was erroneously described by the late Mr Haworth as the Paykulliana of Fabricius ; but Mr Doubleday has found that the insect is perfectly distinct, and that the present species was first described under the name pauperana, and the name adopted by Duponchel and Doubleday." At this time Bouchard was living at 7 North Conduit Street, Bethnal Green Road, London.
In July 1850, a year before Whittlesea Mere and its remaining fenland were destroyed through drainage, Bouchard visited that locality, staying at the village of Yaxley, in the old county of Huntingdonshire. At Whittlesea Mere he took a good series of the rare moth that he and other British entomologists referred to as Zeuzera Arundinis Hubner 1808, a synonym of Phragmataecia castaneae Hübner, 1790. The well known entomologist Henry Doubleday was also at Yaxley during the July of 1850 and gave details of the habitats and early stages of P. castaneae in the Zoologist, the editor, Edward Newman stating that he had a similar communication from Bouchard, perhaps the two entomologists had collected there together. P. castaneae, the female of which is remarkable for her extremely elongated body, still occurs in Wicken and Chippenham Fens in Cambridgeshire and in the Norfolk Broads. Henry Doubleday in his Synonymic List of the British Lepidoptera (1847–1850) listed a Microlepidoptera that Bouchard had captured at Yaxley in 1850, Phtheochroa schreibersiana Frölich, 1828, a scarce moth of the Tortricidae family that was new to Britain.
Figure 2. Phragmataecia castaneae female. Wicken Fen. Bristol Museum collection.
In 1852 Edwin Shepherd exhibited a remarkable series of specimens collected by Bouchard during two visits to the Dover area in Kent that summer. During July among those moths he had captured were the rare and beautiful immigrant noctuid Thysanoplusia orichalcea, the noctuid Standfussiana lucernea, Cynaeda dentalis of the Crambidae family that is confined in Britain to south-east England, the Tortricid Selania leplastriana, which only occurs here on a few coastal sea cliffs in Southern England and Pammene gallicana of the same family, Agonopterix nanatella of the Depressariidae family whose larvae feed within Carline thistle Carlina vulgaris, Apodia bifractella and Metzneria neuropterella of the Gelechiidae family, the latter a scarce species of southern England, the larva feeding in the seedheads of Dwarf Thistle Cirsium acaule and Knapweed Centaurea nigra, Acompsia schmidtiellus also of the Gelechiidae family, a scarce and local moth of calcareous soil, the larva feeding on Marjoram Origanum vulgare. Bouchard was almost certainly collecting on the sand dunes of Deal area, as well as on the chalk cliffs at Dover. In September Bouchard added rare butterfly specimens to his Dover collections, capturing a specimen of the rare immigrant Nymphalis antiopa, together with unusual pale aberrations of Maniola jurtina and Lasiommata megera. It was specimens such as these, which were exhibited at the Entomological Society that your reputation as a professional field collector could be made, especially as those specimens exhibited were also listed in the Zoologist, a leading journal of the day. By 1853 Bouchard was living at 11 Minerva Street, Hackney Road, Bethnal Green, which like his previous address has long since vanished through the modernization of that London borough. In 1854 he moved to Marling Pit Cottage at Sutton in Surrey. During 1853 Bouchard had began a correspondence with James Charles Dale of Glanvilles Wootton in Dorset, who began purchasing specimens from him. Dale also sent boxes of insects to the dealer for exchange. Bouchard wrote 53 letters to Dale, the last in 1863, and his letters in the Dale archives at the Entomology library at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History are a valuable source of reference.
Figure 3. An early British specimen of Nymphalis antiopa bred by the parson entomologist William Kirby (1759-1850). This species was always considered on account of its uncertain appearance a great prize among British butterfly collectors. OUMNH collections.
In 1854 Bouchard visited Scotland, he did not follow the beaten track to the well known, and rich locality of Rannoch in Perthshire, but explored eastern Scotland. Here Bouchard made discoveries among the Microlepidoptera, adding the Tortricid Epinotia rubiginosana Herrich-Schäffer, 1851 (Fig 4) to the British list, which was described as the synonym Poecilochroma bouchardana Wilkinson, 1859. Also new to Britain was the Tortricid Retinia resinella, the larvae feeding in Scots Pine P. sylvestris, and Dichomeris juniperella of the Gelechiidae family, a scarce and local species in Britain of the mountains of Scotland, the larva feeding in a silken spinning on Juniper. Bouchard also took specimens of the Gelechiid Prolita solutella Zeller, 1839, another rare and local species of moorlands and heathlands, the larva feeding within a silken tube or tent on Petty Whin Genista anglica and Hairy Greenweed Genista pilosa. In spite of these discoveries, Bouchard was unhappy with the results of the 1854 collecting season. In a letter dated the 21 September 1854, he wrote to Dale ". I have had a very bad collecting season and a very expensive one for I found the travelling in Scotland by the coaches much more expensive than in England".
Figure 4. Epinotia rubiginosana. Labelled Forres at side and a probable Bouchard specimen from Scotland. Dale coll. OUMNH.
Bouchard wrote to Dale on 15 May 1857 that he had a very fine specimen of the early spring moth Odontosia carmelita of the Notodontidae family for 18 shillings, then considered a rarity which Dale purchased. On the 27 July 1857 he wrote to Dale that the previous month he had again worked the rich collecting grounds of Dover, Deal and Folkstone in Kent and sent Dale a long list of specimens, who purchased among other things Thysanoplusia orichalcea for 6 shillings, a new unamed micro moth, a Pycita species for a £1 and Cynaeda dentalis was 1 shilling. For his purchase of specimens from Bouchard's list, Dale sent a postal order on the 21 August 1857 to Bouchard for £5 (worth around £610.33, in today's money.). H. J. Harding Bouchard's friend and fellow professional collector was also staying at Deal in the June of 1857, and they almost certainly collected insects together. On the 1 May 1858 Bouchard wrote to Dale that he had some fine specimens of the early Geometer Aleucis pictaria, Curtis 1833, a synonym of Aleucis distinctata Herrich-Schäffer 1839 and he was going in search of O. carmelita again and that soon afterwards he would be visiting Ireland to explore the southern coast.
A Holy Grail of British and Irish Lepidoptera, the White Prominent Leucodonta bicoloria.
Bouchard is most well known among British lepidoperists for finding the beautiful moth Leucodonta bicoloria Denis & Schiffermüller, 1775 of the Notodontidae family in Southern Ireland. At that time this species was usually placed in the genus Notodonta and the specific name spelt bicolora. Bouchard first captured a specimen of L. bicoloria on the 1 July 1858 in the Muchross area of Killarney, in one of the extensive birch woods, and this was big entomological news, an article even appeared in the popular National Magazine. Bouchard's specimen of L. bicoloria was purchased by S. L. Waring who exhibited it at the meeting of the Entomological Society of London held on the 2 August 1858. Bouchard was back in Killarney in June 1859 with his wife, taking a further specimen of L. bicoloria. Two weeks later Edwin Birchall who was regarded as an authority on the Irish Lepidoptera arrived at Killarney. Birchall wrote" On our way back we called at the Tower to see P. Bouchard : he showed us a splendid male specimen of N. bicolora captured the previous week ." On the 17 December 1859 Bouchard sent Dale a long promised specimen of the rare noctuid Egira conspicillaris that he had captured in England, probably in Kent. Dale had inquired about his specimen of N. bicoloria that Bouchard had captured in Ireland that year, but this had been promised to John Edward Gray, the Keeper of Zoology at the British Museum. Bouchard stated in his letter to Dale that he also saw several wings of N. bicoloria in spiders webs.
Figure 5. Leucodonta bicoloria. Bouchard, Killarney. Dale coll. OUMHN.
Figure 6. Article regarding the capture of a new British moth Spatalia (Leucodonta) bicoloria in the National Magazine volume 3, 1858.
Figure 7. The beautiful Leucodonta bicoloria from Germany by Scholley. Wikimedia Commons.
Birchall wrote in the Entomologist (1867) of L. bicoloria " Doubt has been cast upon the native origin of the specimens said to have been captured at Killarney by the late Peter Bouchard. I can only say I saw the two specimens in his hands there, which had certainly been alive within a few hours and I do not know any ground to suspect a deliberately planned fraud ; still the fact that the most determined search, year after year by some of our best collectors, failed to produce further examples was a discouraging circumstances, and, considering the temptation which the capture of so fine an addition to our native insects offered to a man in Bouchard's circumstances, perhaps justified the scepticism which has existed. I have, however, the pleasure of stating that Mr John Hardy, Jnr of Manchester, has this season (1866) captured a male specimen of N. bicolora near the spot which Bouchard pointed out to me as that in which he took the insect; and there is therefore no reason why we should refuse to include the species in our lists. Birchall wrote in a later article in the Entomologist (1867) " The most interesting of the above named insects is Notodonta bicolora, I have never been fortunate enough to capture, though I made several journeys to Killarney with that object. A man is apt to suffer in fame if he finds a species that cannot be discovered again, and something of this sort was poor Bouchard's fate in the connection with his discovery of bicolora in Killarney. The capture of specimens of the insect, both in larva and imago state, during the summer of 1866, I am glad to say removes any ground of doubt as to its truly indigenous character ; all the specimens yet have been taken have been beaten from birch trees on the Muckross peninsular in June. " In England J. Chappell had taken an adult of L. bicoloria in 1861 in Burnt Wood, Staffordshire and a further six adults and larva there in 1865.
A few years after defending Bouchard, Birchall did an surprising volte-face, listing 16 species in in the Entomologist's Monthly magazine (1874) that he did not consider native to Ireland, among them L. bicoloria. Considering his previous comments this caused almost disbelief among certain readers of that journal. Birchall now believed Bouchard had faked his captures, supplementing them with continental specimens and that J.R. Hardy had apparently done so as well. Several eminent entomologists wrote to the journal in Bouchard's defense. Samuel Stevens the well known entomologist and London natural history agent wrote in 1874 " In justice to the memory of a hard-working and honest collector, whose statements were never doubted, I cannot allow Mr Birchall's List of the Lepidoptera of Ireland which he states have been erroneously recorded, and which includes Notodonta bicolora, to go forth without protesting against excluding that species ; for, when I was at Killarney in the summer of 1871, I purposely made inquiry, and found where P. Bourchard had lived, and met a man who saw one of the specimens he took alive in his box just after he had captured it, and the tree where it was found was pointed out to me. I do not think because others have been there and not found it, there should be any reason to doubt the man who I have every reason to never believe once attempted to pass off Foreign for British specimens. Dr Gill has the diary of the late Mr Bouchard with the dates of the captures of the seven or eight specimens he took in three or four seasons collecting. I should myself like to stay six weeks there at the proper time, if there were accommodation to be obtained in the neighbourhood, but it is five or six miles from Muckross, and no lodgings of any decent kind are to be had any nearer ; and the distance and fatigue of working the ground, which is very boggy and irregular, would be more, I think, than my strength would permit". During a visit to Ireland in 1864 Bouchard had further success in taking L. bicoloria as Stevens records, he also had the good fortune to take two specimens of Minucia lunaris of the Erebidae family, a rare immigrant and an occasional transitory resident.
John Ray Hardy of Manchester who Birchall had previously stated had taken L. bicoloria in Killarney wrote in 1874 " Mr Birchall, when doubting the authenticity of this species as Irish, was probably not aware of my having captured and bred it, under the following circumstances. In the year 1867, I captured a male perfect insect, and the next season took a larva, from which in 1869, I reared a female, I remember showing alive to Mr Hodgkinson of Preston ; both the male and the larva were taken not more than a mile from the Muckross hotel, and I have also found the wings of old specimens in spider's webs there. I was at Killarney for two years, and worked hard during each season, but never got more than these two moths. I firmly believe that the late Mr Bouchard also took the insect there, as I stayed at the house where he stopped, and the master of it, told me that Bouchard came in one day much excited, saying he had taken bicolora. The master of the house and others called the insect ' Mychel lorem' and used to joke if I had taken it, when I took the male, I showed it to him, and he recognized it instantly."
Walter Battershell Gill, a well known London entomologist added " I am greatly obliged to my friend, Mr Stevens for defending the memory of the late P. Bouchard. I knew the man somewhat intimately for many years (in fact, he was my instructor in entomology), and I do not believe that there exists a more honest or truthful entomologist, be he gentle or simple. The fact that N. bicolora has not been taken by other entomologist's proves nothing, for numbers of rare insects disappear for years, or turn up once in a lifetime." Birchall (1874) replied to the letters defending Bouchard, writing " After reading what has been urged in your January and February numbers, in support of the claim of Notodonta bicolora to a place in the list of Irish Lepidoptera, I must still hold to my opinion I have expressed, that its occurrence requires confirmation. It is merely a dealer's insect, and I will, I expect gradually retire from the market like the Apollo, Podalirius, and Virgaureae of the last generation. I was at Killarney at the time Bouchard professed to have captured N. bicolora, and my first suspicion of its foreign origin was raised by his own unprovoked charge against other collectors of importing pupae ; thus showing what was in his mind, and that he was perfectly familiar with the process." With Birchall's letter, the editor of the Journal H.T. Stainton decided to put an end to the matter. L. bicoloria did turn up in Ireland again, two specimens that had been captured in Kenmare area, Co Kerry in 1892 were found in a collection of a Miss Vernon with several others and a larva was found in that area. 18 larvae of L. bicoloria were collected by Lt. Col. Charles Donovan in Killarney in 1936 and a larva was found in the same locality by Mrs G.E. Lucas who took a male there in 1938. The moth then apparently vanished again in Ireland in spite of many searches. Robinson Mercury moth traps failed to find it in the 1960s and it was feared extinct until in 2008 a party of entomologists went in search of L. bicoloria and several came to M.V. light at an undisclosed location.
Edwin Birchall (1819-1884) was the son of a wealthy Leeds businessman. He was an enthusiastic collector who was a constant contributor on Entomological subjects to the various periodicals. In 1861, his occupation was recorded as a carrier's agent but by 1881 he had become a scientific writer principally on natural history. The pursuit of insects would ultimately cost Birchall his health, as he never fully recovered from falling down a cliff whilst out collecting. Birchall has been at the centre of some controversy himself, regarding his discovery of Erebia epiphron in Ireland, the validity which has been called into question. Birchall claimed to have taken a fine series of this insect in June 1854 in marshy hollows half way up the mountain Croagh Patrick near Westport in County Mayo. Redway (1981) questions Birchall's integrity regarding his captures of E. epiphron, as it was never seen in this locality again in spite of much searching. There are few other Irish specimens of E. epiphron in the Dublin Museum whose authenticity is open to some doubt. This species still occurs in all of its historic English and Scottish localities because the habitat remains unchanged and this is true also of the habitat in Ireland, where it had claimed to have been found, and where it has never been rediscovered.
In the collections of the British Museum of Natural History there are the following specimens of L. bicoloria that have Bouchard's name attached to them. One specimen labelled Killarney 1858. Ex coll J. Cosmo Melville, ex coll Eton College Natural History Society is in poor condition, being stained. As Bouchard took only one specimen in 1858, his first, it is probable that this was the specimen that was the original Irish example that was sold to Waring. The specimen captured in 1859 that was purchased by Dr Gray. A specimen labelled Killarney Co Kerry, Bouchard 1864. Ex coll P.B. Mason, ex coll E.R. Bankes. A specimen labelled Bouchard taken Killarney. One in very poor condition labelled Bouchard. Ex coll W. Dowing and one labelled Bought off Bouchard by F. Bond, Rothschild bequest. These specimens with other British examples can be viewed at the link below.
data.nhm.ac.uk/dataset/collection-specimens/resource/05ff2255-c38a-40c9-b657-4ccb55ab2feb?view_id=6ba121d1-da26-4ee1-81fa-7da11e68f68e&q=Leucodonta+bicoloria
The Entomological Trial.
Within the brotherhood of entomology, friendships are formed which last a lifetime but sadly like others in any walk of life, they can end acrimoniously but rarely if ever have they ended in an entomological trial judged by a jury as was the case of H. J. Harding and Peter Bouchard in 1860. Bouchard bought a case of libel against his former friend and fellow professional collector Harding, that was heard at the Court of Queen's Bench at Westminster and two leading entomologists of the day, Henry Tibbats Stainton and Edward Newman were called as witnesses. In the Weekly Entomologist's Intelligencer published on Saturday 17 March 1860 there appeared a note from H. J. Harding that was entitled "caution" and which contained the following " Having lent various sums of money to Peter Bouchard, of Marling-Pit cottage, Sutton, Surrey for collecting purposes, not one penny of which he has returned, I hereby caution all parties against trusting the said Peter Bouchard in any way." By this accusation Harding had thrown Bouchard's reputation as a professional collector in disrepute and the Surrey collector returned his own salvo in a note in the next issue of the Intelligencer that read. "Reply to Mr Harding's caution". "I beg to inform the readers of the intelligencer that in 1845 I borrowed (in various small sums) £3 from Mr H. J. Harding, and left with him as security ten cabinet drawers, some of them corked, and containing insects, which I valued at above the amount borrowed. Two years afterwards I wished for the drawers back, and offered to pay the money, but was told I could not have them, as some more drawers had been made and a case, so as to form a very nice cabinet. Under these circumstances I declined to repay the money."
In the Intelligencer for the 30 June 1861, there appeared a note by the editor Stainton, entitled an "Entomological Trial" which read " On Wednesday, the 13th instant, the case of Bouchard versus Harding was heard in the Court of the Queen's Bench, before Mr Justic Blackburn. The action was raised to recover damages for the loss which the plaintiff had sustained owing to a communication headed " Caution" which the defendant had published in the Intelligencer of March 17, 1860. The jury gave the verdict for the plaintiff, damages £30". Stainton the editor of the Intelligencer, and Newman the publisher, both agreed to pay Bouchard damages out of court through his solicitor, A. F. Sheppard, of 38 Moorgate Street in London. Harding's hasty note to the Intelligencer regarding Bouchard had cost him a very hefty sum for a working entomologist and he must have deeply regretted his decision to send the warning to the editor Stainton. Although Bouchard seems to have done well out of this state of affairs, his solicitor fees were expensive and as the weather of the summer of 1860 resulting in a bad collecting season, he was asking for subscriptions from his friends and customers to help finance a collecting expedition to Scotland in the summer of 1861.
Being a professional field collector such as Bouchard or Richard Weaver who as his honour would dictate, would only sell bona-fide British specimens, money was a constant worry. Others dealers at the time were quite content to past off Foreign specimens as British, asking and getting exorbitant amounts for them. One well known and very successful London based Dealer of the 1860s & 1870s has become notorious for this, although at the time it did not stop his specimens selling, such was the obsession for British rarities, of course he and others of this ilk, sold genuine and often rare British examples they could obtain but those they could not, an agreement with a German or French dealer was set up to supply there wants for a fraction of the price that they would get from their unsuspecting or more often gullible wealthy British customers. The summer of 1860 was one of the wettest on record and the stormy winter of 1860-1861 was very cold with much snow. Bouchard wrote to Dale on the 14 January 1861 " I am sorry to say inconsequence of the last wet summer it has done me so much injury I have got a troublesome time of it to get through the winter and my future prospects depends on friends assisting me with my journeys next spring, I am opening a subscription of what I require from six or seven friends to advance me £3, the parties doing so shall be paid out of my captures before any of them are sold." Dale was in agreement and duly sent Bouchard the money.
Vising the Scottish Highlands Bouchard wrote to Dale on the 19 June 1861 from Carr Bridge in Badenoch and Strathspey, in eastern Scotland, that he was taking good things, but many were of the smaller Microlepidoptera and he would be soon to visiting another locality to look for larger species. Among the rare moths taken in Scotland during this field trip was fine series of the noctuids, Protolampra sobrina that Weaver has discovered in Scotland during 1853 and Xestia castanea, together with the Gelechiid Dichomeris juniperella. In a letter dated 18 May 1862 Bouchard asked Dale to advance him £2 and mentioned he was going in search of Thetidia smaragdaria, a now extinct British moth that was once found in the salt marshes on the coast of Essex. He also went to the Breckland in East Anglia for the rare Geometer moth known to British entomologists at this time as Lithostege nivearia Doubleday, 1849, a synonym of Lithostege griseata Denis & Schiffermüller 1775. Again on the 19 March 1863 he wrote to Dale asking for an advance on specimens of between £2 & 3 pounds, as he wished to go to collect in Wales. Bouchard wrote to Dale on the 10 July 1863 that he had met with L. nivearia (L. griseata) and they were 10s each and on 23 July he sent a pair of that species to Dale with others specimens in a box. Bouchard's last letter to Dale was written on the 24 August 1863 mentioning that he had taken a male of the immigrant Geometer Rhodometra sacraria that he had captured where he had found it four years earlier. On the 12 April 1864 Bouchard's wife had written to Dale to say that her husband had deserted her and that she was selling all his cabinets.
An Expedition to New Granada 1865.
Surprisingly for a professional entomologist that had spent his life dealing in and collecting British insects, in 1865 Bouchard set sail for a collecting expedition to Santa Marta, New Granada in present day Colombia. Samuel Stevens was acting as Bouchard's agent and in August 1865 he exhibited some of the butterflies that he had sent back to England at the Entomological Society of London, and read part of a letter dated 30 June 1865 that accompanied the collection. Bouchard informed Steven's in his letter that he was collecting about 100 miles in the interior, in a valley about seventy miles west of the Snowy Mountains, and about the same distance from the Magdelena River ; he and his native assistants had been brought into the interior on a mule's back ; and he had obtained very decent apartments in a house where the next neighbour was thirty miles off, he was in good health and spirits, and had become used to the heat of the county. However, at the November meeting of the Entomological Society Stevens informed the members of the Entomological Society of London of Bouchard's death. On his return to Santa Marta he caught a fever and died within four days. At a December meeting Stevens exhibited insects from Bouchard's second and last collection from New Granada.
Among Bouchard's Colombian collections were many notable species of Longhorn beetles, comprising 53 species, 25 of them were new to science and these were catalogued and described in the Transactions of the Entomological Society of London (1866) by Francis Polkinghorne Pascoe. Bourchard's holotypes of his Cerambycids are in the British Museum of Natural History.
Figure 8. Transactions of the Entomological Society of London (1866) New species of Cerambycidae, collected by Peter Bouchard in Colombia and described by F. P. Pascoe. Plate 20. 1. Zeale scalaris. 2. Isomerida amicta. 3. Phaea crocata 4. Apilocera postica. 5. Cydros leucurus. 6. Phoenidnus lissonotoides. 7. Neoclytus scenicus.
Battershell Gill came into the possession of Bouchard's diary after his death and he retained it until at least 1874. Battershell Gill's collection of Lepidoptera specimens was sold in April 1886 but Bouchard's diary was not listed. The diary's whereabouts are now unknown and it may have been lost. One of Bouchard's descendants in a message posted on a website was very keen to find the lost diary. It would of course be very interesting to hear from anyone that can add any information to this article. Bouchard's own private collection of British Lepidoptera was sold at J.C. Steven's auction rooms in Covent Garden, London in March 1865. The specimen's in this article were photographed at OUMNH Oxford University Museum of Natural History and the Bristol Museum.
Peter Andrews. 2019.
References.
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Birchall, E., 1867 The Irish List of Lepidoptera. Entomologist 3: 192.
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Redway, D.B., 1981 Some comments on the reported occurrence of Erebia epiphron (Knoch)(Lepidoptera:Satyridae) in Ireland during the nineteenth century. Entomologist's Gazette 32: 157-159.
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Stainton, H.T. ,1855 New British species since 1835. Entomologist's Annual 1:.47
Stainton, H.T., 1858 New British species in 1858. Entomologist's Annual 4: 145.
Stainton, H.T., 1860 An Entomological Trial. The Entomologist's Weekly Intelligencer : 7-8 104.
Stevens, S., 1874 Lepidoptera in Ireland. Entomologist's Monthly Magazine 10: 180.
UK Beetle Recording. Biographical Dictionary. Online website accessed January 2019.
Waring P., Allen D., Mellon C., Huges M., Telfer M., 2008 The Rediscovery of the White Prominent Leucodonata Bicoloria in Ireland in 2008. Atropos : 35.
This article details the life of another of Britain's now forgotten entomologists, who was a well known figure in 19th century Britain. Many of today's professional entomologists spend their lives in the laboratory or the museum. Very few professional entomologists such as Peter Bouchard are able to spend the majority of their working lives in the fresh air of the countryside collecting insects. Many of Britain's more famous entomologists have been fairly well covered by different authors, and this is the first article that covers the known facts about this collector from humble origins, who in my opinion is no less interesting than his more famous wealthy gentleman contemporaries.
The British professional collector Peter Bouchard ( 4 April 1816- 1865) was of Huguenot descent, and born in Bethnal green in the East End of London. When he married in 1838 his occupation was a Hearth Rug Maker. In the census returns of England and Wales for 1861 Bouchard is listed as a naturalist and tobacconist. Although he visited well known localities for rare insects, Bouchard was prepared to explore new ground, travelling to Southern Ireland to explore the woods of Killarney, where he made the surprising discovery of the beautiful moth Leucodonta bicoloria. Unusually for those who made their living by collecting British specimens, he decided to travel into the jungles of New Granada (modern day Colombia), sending back to Britain two collections, containing many new species. The expedition to New Granada ended in tragic circumstances and Bouchard never saw his homeland again.
Living in Bethnal Green Bouchard made the acquaintance of a number of insect collectors who were Spitalfields Weavers, such as James William Bond and Daniel Bydder. Here he also met with Henry J. Harding who would also become a professional collector. Bond later became an early microscopic slide mounter, opening an opticians shop. Bouchard's early collecting forays were in localities near London, most of which have long since vanished under the urban sprawl of the our capital city. In Bond's recently discovered entomological journal he records meeting Bouchard on several occasions. The old Eagle Inn was frequented by those London collectors hunting insects in nearby Wanstead Forest, and on the 29 June 1828 Bond saw Bouchard there in the the company of Bydder and the collector Lehoop. Visiting the marshes of Temple Mills on the 17 May 1829, a rich collecting locality with its Typha and Osier beds, Bond met with Bouchard in the company of the collectors Barshaw, Brambley and Philips. Several days later in Wanstead Forest on the 24 May Bouchard was out hunting insects with the collector Gogay. On the 25 July 1830 after visiting Stratford March in search of the large caterpillars of the hawk moth Deilephila elpenor, Bond visited Temple Mills where there was quite a gathering of entomologists, meeting there Bouchard with George Bydder, his son Daniel, Harding, Brambley and Philips.
Figure 1. The Eagle 1832. The old coaching inn at Wanstead was much frequented by early 19th century London insect collectors
H. J. Harding recorded in the Zoologist (1847) that he and Bouchard visited the Deal Sand hills on the coast of Kent to collect specimens of the very local moth Eilema pygmaeola of the Erebidae (Arctiinae) family. Harding had discovered E. pygmaeola as new to science several years previously. Bouchard and others published notes of his captures between 1850 & 1865, in the Zoologist and the Entomologist's Annual.
Bouchard's first note by his own hand appeared in the Zoologist (1850) regarding the capture of the local Geometer moth Trichopteryx polycommata at Darenth Wood, Kent in April. A second communication to the Zoologist that year by Bouchard, regarding the capture at Darenth Wood of the Tortricid moth Phaneta pauperana Duponchel, 1843, reveals that he was a knowledgeable field collector, writing " I have taken a considerable number of this little known Tortrix in the above locality, on the 14th and 15th of April last. It has long been considered a great rarity, a single worn specimen existing in Mr Bentley's cabinet, and very few others are known. It was erroneously described by the late Mr Haworth as the Paykulliana of Fabricius ; but Mr Doubleday has found that the insect is perfectly distinct, and that the present species was first described under the name pauperana, and the name adopted by Duponchel and Doubleday." At this time Bouchard was living at 7 North Conduit Street, Bethnal Green Road, London.
In July 1850, a year before Whittlesea Mere and its remaining fenland were destroyed through drainage, Bouchard visited that locality, staying at the village of Yaxley, in the old county of Huntingdonshire. At Whittlesea Mere he took a good series of the rare moth that he and other British entomologists referred to as Zeuzera Arundinis Hubner 1808, a synonym of Phragmataecia castaneae Hübner, 1790. The well known entomologist Henry Doubleday was also at Yaxley during the July of 1850 and gave details of the habitats and early stages of P. castaneae in the Zoologist, the editor, Edward Newman stating that he had a similar communication from Bouchard, perhaps the two entomologists had collected there together. P. castaneae, the female of which is remarkable for her extremely elongated body, still occurs in Wicken and Chippenham Fens in Cambridgeshire and in the Norfolk Broads. Henry Doubleday in his Synonymic List of the British Lepidoptera (1847–1850) listed a Microlepidoptera that Bouchard had captured at Yaxley in 1850, Phtheochroa schreibersiana Frölich, 1828, a scarce moth of the Tortricidae family that was new to Britain.
Figure 2. Phragmataecia castaneae female. Wicken Fen. Bristol Museum collection.
In 1852 Edwin Shepherd exhibited a remarkable series of specimens collected by Bouchard during two visits to the Dover area in Kent that summer. During July among those moths he had captured were the rare and beautiful immigrant noctuid Thysanoplusia orichalcea, the noctuid Standfussiana lucernea, Cynaeda dentalis of the Crambidae family that is confined in Britain to south-east England, the Tortricid Selania leplastriana, which only occurs here on a few coastal sea cliffs in Southern England and Pammene gallicana of the same family, Agonopterix nanatella of the Depressariidae family whose larvae feed within Carline thistle Carlina vulgaris, Apodia bifractella and Metzneria neuropterella of the Gelechiidae family, the latter a scarce species of southern England, the larva feeding in the seedheads of Dwarf Thistle Cirsium acaule and Knapweed Centaurea nigra, Acompsia schmidtiellus also of the Gelechiidae family, a scarce and local moth of calcareous soil, the larva feeding on Marjoram Origanum vulgare. Bouchard was almost certainly collecting on the sand dunes of Deal area, as well as on the chalk cliffs at Dover. In September Bouchard added rare butterfly specimens to his Dover collections, capturing a specimen of the rare immigrant Nymphalis antiopa, together with unusual pale aberrations of Maniola jurtina and Lasiommata megera. It was specimens such as these, which were exhibited at the Entomological Society that your reputation as a professional field collector could be made, especially as those specimens exhibited were also listed in the Zoologist, a leading journal of the day. By 1853 Bouchard was living at 11 Minerva Street, Hackney Road, Bethnal Green, which like his previous address has long since vanished through the modernization of that London borough. In 1854 he moved to Marling Pit Cottage at Sutton in Surrey. During 1853 Bouchard had began a correspondence with James Charles Dale of Glanvilles Wootton in Dorset, who began purchasing specimens from him. Dale also sent boxes of insects to the dealer for exchange. Bouchard wrote 53 letters to Dale, the last in 1863, and his letters in the Dale archives at the Entomology library at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History are a valuable source of reference.
Figure 3. An early British specimen of Nymphalis antiopa bred by the parson entomologist William Kirby (1759-1850). This species was always considered on account of its uncertain appearance a great prize among British butterfly collectors. OUMNH collections.
In 1854 Bouchard visited Scotland, he did not follow the beaten track to the well known, and rich locality of Rannoch in Perthshire, but explored eastern Scotland. Here Bouchard made discoveries among the Microlepidoptera, adding the Tortricid Epinotia rubiginosana Herrich-Schäffer, 1851 (Fig 4) to the British list, which was described as the synonym Poecilochroma bouchardana Wilkinson, 1859. Also new to Britain was the Tortricid Retinia resinella, the larvae feeding in Scots Pine P. sylvestris, and Dichomeris juniperella of the Gelechiidae family, a scarce and local species in Britain of the mountains of Scotland, the larva feeding in a silken spinning on Juniper. Bouchard also took specimens of the Gelechiid Prolita solutella Zeller, 1839, another rare and local species of moorlands and heathlands, the larva feeding within a silken tube or tent on Petty Whin Genista anglica and Hairy Greenweed Genista pilosa. In spite of these discoveries, Bouchard was unhappy with the results of the 1854 collecting season. In a letter dated the 21 September 1854, he wrote to Dale ". I have had a very bad collecting season and a very expensive one for I found the travelling in Scotland by the coaches much more expensive than in England".
Figure 4. Epinotia rubiginosana. Labelled Forres at side and a probable Bouchard specimen from Scotland. Dale coll. OUMNH.
Bouchard wrote to Dale on 15 May 1857 that he had a very fine specimen of the early spring moth Odontosia carmelita of the Notodontidae family for 18 shillings, then considered a rarity which Dale purchased. On the 27 July 1857 he wrote to Dale that the previous month he had again worked the rich collecting grounds of Dover, Deal and Folkstone in Kent and sent Dale a long list of specimens, who purchased among other things Thysanoplusia orichalcea for 6 shillings, a new unamed micro moth, a Pycita species for a £1 and Cynaeda dentalis was 1 shilling. For his purchase of specimens from Bouchard's list, Dale sent a postal order on the 21 August 1857 to Bouchard for £5 (worth around £610.33, in today's money.). H. J. Harding Bouchard's friend and fellow professional collector was also staying at Deal in the June of 1857, and they almost certainly collected insects together. On the 1 May 1858 Bouchard wrote to Dale that he had some fine specimens of the early Geometer Aleucis pictaria, Curtis 1833, a synonym of Aleucis distinctata Herrich-Schäffer 1839 and he was going in search of O. carmelita again and that soon afterwards he would be visiting Ireland to explore the southern coast.
A Holy Grail of British and Irish Lepidoptera, the White Prominent Leucodonta bicoloria.
Bouchard is most well known among British lepidoperists for finding the beautiful moth Leucodonta bicoloria Denis & Schiffermüller, 1775 of the Notodontidae family in Southern Ireland. At that time this species was usually placed in the genus Notodonta and the specific name spelt bicolora. Bouchard first captured a specimen of L. bicoloria on the 1 July 1858 in the Muchross area of Killarney, in one of the extensive birch woods, and this was big entomological news, an article even appeared in the popular National Magazine. Bouchard's specimen of L. bicoloria was purchased by S. L. Waring who exhibited it at the meeting of the Entomological Society of London held on the 2 August 1858. Bouchard was back in Killarney in June 1859 with his wife, taking a further specimen of L. bicoloria. Two weeks later Edwin Birchall who was regarded as an authority on the Irish Lepidoptera arrived at Killarney. Birchall wrote" On our way back we called at the Tower to see P. Bouchard : he showed us a splendid male specimen of N. bicolora captured the previous week ." On the 17 December 1859 Bouchard sent Dale a long promised specimen of the rare noctuid Egira conspicillaris that he had captured in England, probably in Kent. Dale had inquired about his specimen of N. bicoloria that Bouchard had captured in Ireland that year, but this had been promised to John Edward Gray, the Keeper of Zoology at the British Museum. Bouchard stated in his letter to Dale that he also saw several wings of N. bicoloria in spiders webs.
Figure 5. Leucodonta bicoloria. Bouchard, Killarney. Dale coll. OUMHN.
Figure 6. Article regarding the capture of a new British moth Spatalia (Leucodonta) bicoloria in the National Magazine volume 3, 1858.
Figure 7. The beautiful Leucodonta bicoloria from Germany by Scholley. Wikimedia Commons.
Birchall wrote in the Entomologist (1867) of L. bicoloria " Doubt has been cast upon the native origin of the specimens said to have been captured at Killarney by the late Peter Bouchard. I can only say I saw the two specimens in his hands there, which had certainly been alive within a few hours and I do not know any ground to suspect a deliberately planned fraud ; still the fact that the most determined search, year after year by some of our best collectors, failed to produce further examples was a discouraging circumstances, and, considering the temptation which the capture of so fine an addition to our native insects offered to a man in Bouchard's circumstances, perhaps justified the scepticism which has existed. I have, however, the pleasure of stating that Mr John Hardy, Jnr of Manchester, has this season (1866) captured a male specimen of N. bicolora near the spot which Bouchard pointed out to me as that in which he took the insect; and there is therefore no reason why we should refuse to include the species in our lists. Birchall wrote in a later article in the Entomologist (1867) " The most interesting of the above named insects is Notodonta bicolora, I have never been fortunate enough to capture, though I made several journeys to Killarney with that object. A man is apt to suffer in fame if he finds a species that cannot be discovered again, and something of this sort was poor Bouchard's fate in the connection with his discovery of bicolora in Killarney. The capture of specimens of the insect, both in larva and imago state, during the summer of 1866, I am glad to say removes any ground of doubt as to its truly indigenous character ; all the specimens yet have been taken have been beaten from birch trees on the Muckross peninsular in June. " In England J. Chappell had taken an adult of L. bicoloria in 1861 in Burnt Wood, Staffordshire and a further six adults and larva there in 1865.
A few years after defending Bouchard, Birchall did an surprising volte-face, listing 16 species in in the Entomologist's Monthly magazine (1874) that he did not consider native to Ireland, among them L. bicoloria. Considering his previous comments this caused almost disbelief among certain readers of that journal. Birchall now believed Bouchard had faked his captures, supplementing them with continental specimens and that J.R. Hardy had apparently done so as well. Several eminent entomologists wrote to the journal in Bouchard's defense. Samuel Stevens the well known entomologist and London natural history agent wrote in 1874 " In justice to the memory of a hard-working and honest collector, whose statements were never doubted, I cannot allow Mr Birchall's List of the Lepidoptera of Ireland which he states have been erroneously recorded, and which includes Notodonta bicolora, to go forth without protesting against excluding that species ; for, when I was at Killarney in the summer of 1871, I purposely made inquiry, and found where P. Bourchard had lived, and met a man who saw one of the specimens he took alive in his box just after he had captured it, and the tree where it was found was pointed out to me. I do not think because others have been there and not found it, there should be any reason to doubt the man who I have every reason to never believe once attempted to pass off Foreign for British specimens. Dr Gill has the diary of the late Mr Bouchard with the dates of the captures of the seven or eight specimens he took in three or four seasons collecting. I should myself like to stay six weeks there at the proper time, if there were accommodation to be obtained in the neighbourhood, but it is five or six miles from Muckross, and no lodgings of any decent kind are to be had any nearer ; and the distance and fatigue of working the ground, which is very boggy and irregular, would be more, I think, than my strength would permit". During a visit to Ireland in 1864 Bouchard had further success in taking L. bicoloria as Stevens records, he also had the good fortune to take two specimens of Minucia lunaris of the Erebidae family, a rare immigrant and an occasional transitory resident.
John Ray Hardy of Manchester who Birchall had previously stated had taken L. bicoloria in Killarney wrote in 1874 " Mr Birchall, when doubting the authenticity of this species as Irish, was probably not aware of my having captured and bred it, under the following circumstances. In the year 1867, I captured a male perfect insect, and the next season took a larva, from which in 1869, I reared a female, I remember showing alive to Mr Hodgkinson of Preston ; both the male and the larva were taken not more than a mile from the Muckross hotel, and I have also found the wings of old specimens in spider's webs there. I was at Killarney for two years, and worked hard during each season, but never got more than these two moths. I firmly believe that the late Mr Bouchard also took the insect there, as I stayed at the house where he stopped, and the master of it, told me that Bouchard came in one day much excited, saying he had taken bicolora. The master of the house and others called the insect ' Mychel lorem' and used to joke if I had taken it, when I took the male, I showed it to him, and he recognized it instantly."
Walter Battershell Gill, a well known London entomologist added " I am greatly obliged to my friend, Mr Stevens for defending the memory of the late P. Bouchard. I knew the man somewhat intimately for many years (in fact, he was my instructor in entomology), and I do not believe that there exists a more honest or truthful entomologist, be he gentle or simple. The fact that N. bicolora has not been taken by other entomologist's proves nothing, for numbers of rare insects disappear for years, or turn up once in a lifetime." Birchall (1874) replied to the letters defending Bouchard, writing " After reading what has been urged in your January and February numbers, in support of the claim of Notodonta bicolora to a place in the list of Irish Lepidoptera, I must still hold to my opinion I have expressed, that its occurrence requires confirmation. It is merely a dealer's insect, and I will, I expect gradually retire from the market like the Apollo, Podalirius, and Virgaureae of the last generation. I was at Killarney at the time Bouchard professed to have captured N. bicolora, and my first suspicion of its foreign origin was raised by his own unprovoked charge against other collectors of importing pupae ; thus showing what was in his mind, and that he was perfectly familiar with the process." With Birchall's letter, the editor of the Journal H.T. Stainton decided to put an end to the matter. L. bicoloria did turn up in Ireland again, two specimens that had been captured in Kenmare area, Co Kerry in 1892 were found in a collection of a Miss Vernon with several others and a larva was found in that area. 18 larvae of L. bicoloria were collected by Lt. Col. Charles Donovan in Killarney in 1936 and a larva was found in the same locality by Mrs G.E. Lucas who took a male there in 1938. The moth then apparently vanished again in Ireland in spite of many searches. Robinson Mercury moth traps failed to find it in the 1960s and it was feared extinct until in 2008 a party of entomologists went in search of L. bicoloria and several came to M.V. light at an undisclosed location.
Edwin Birchall (1819-1884) was the son of a wealthy Leeds businessman. He was an enthusiastic collector who was a constant contributor on Entomological subjects to the various periodicals. In 1861, his occupation was recorded as a carrier's agent but by 1881 he had become a scientific writer principally on natural history. The pursuit of insects would ultimately cost Birchall his health, as he never fully recovered from falling down a cliff whilst out collecting. Birchall has been at the centre of some controversy himself, regarding his discovery of Erebia epiphron in Ireland, the validity which has been called into question. Birchall claimed to have taken a fine series of this insect in June 1854 in marshy hollows half way up the mountain Croagh Patrick near Westport in County Mayo. Redway (1981) questions Birchall's integrity regarding his captures of E. epiphron, as it was never seen in this locality again in spite of much searching. There are few other Irish specimens of E. epiphron in the Dublin Museum whose authenticity is open to some doubt. This species still occurs in all of its historic English and Scottish localities because the habitat remains unchanged and this is true also of the habitat in Ireland, where it had claimed to have been found, and where it has never been rediscovered.
In the collections of the British Museum of Natural History there are the following specimens of L. bicoloria that have Bouchard's name attached to them. One specimen labelled Killarney 1858. Ex coll J. Cosmo Melville, ex coll Eton College Natural History Society is in poor condition, being stained. As Bouchard took only one specimen in 1858, his first, it is probable that this was the specimen that was the original Irish example that was sold to Waring. The specimen captured in 1859 that was purchased by Dr Gray. A specimen labelled Killarney Co Kerry, Bouchard 1864. Ex coll P.B. Mason, ex coll E.R. Bankes. A specimen labelled Bouchard taken Killarney. One in very poor condition labelled Bouchard. Ex coll W. Dowing and one labelled Bought off Bouchard by F. Bond, Rothschild bequest. These specimens with other British examples can be viewed at the link below.
data.nhm.ac.uk/dataset/collection-specimens/resource/05ff2255-c38a-40c9-b657-4ccb55ab2feb?view_id=6ba121d1-da26-4ee1-81fa-7da11e68f68e&q=Leucodonta+bicoloria
The Entomological Trial.
Within the brotherhood of entomology, friendships are formed which last a lifetime but sadly like others in any walk of life, they can end acrimoniously but rarely if ever have they ended in an entomological trial judged by a jury as was the case of H. J. Harding and Peter Bouchard in 1860. Bouchard bought a case of libel against his former friend and fellow professional collector Harding, that was heard at the Court of Queen's Bench at Westminster and two leading entomologists of the day, Henry Tibbats Stainton and Edward Newman were called as witnesses. In the Weekly Entomologist's Intelligencer published on Saturday 17 March 1860 there appeared a note from H. J. Harding that was entitled "caution" and which contained the following " Having lent various sums of money to Peter Bouchard, of Marling-Pit cottage, Sutton, Surrey for collecting purposes, not one penny of which he has returned, I hereby caution all parties against trusting the said Peter Bouchard in any way." By this accusation Harding had thrown Bouchard's reputation as a professional collector in disrepute and the Surrey collector returned his own salvo in a note in the next issue of the Intelligencer that read. "Reply to Mr Harding's caution". "I beg to inform the readers of the intelligencer that in 1845 I borrowed (in various small sums) £3 from Mr H. J. Harding, and left with him as security ten cabinet drawers, some of them corked, and containing insects, which I valued at above the amount borrowed. Two years afterwards I wished for the drawers back, and offered to pay the money, but was told I could not have them, as some more drawers had been made and a case, so as to form a very nice cabinet. Under these circumstances I declined to repay the money."
In the Intelligencer for the 30 June 1861, there appeared a note by the editor Stainton, entitled an "Entomological Trial" which read " On Wednesday, the 13th instant, the case of Bouchard versus Harding was heard in the Court of the Queen's Bench, before Mr Justic Blackburn. The action was raised to recover damages for the loss which the plaintiff had sustained owing to a communication headed " Caution" which the defendant had published in the Intelligencer of March 17, 1860. The jury gave the verdict for the plaintiff, damages £30". Stainton the editor of the Intelligencer, and Newman the publisher, both agreed to pay Bouchard damages out of court through his solicitor, A. F. Sheppard, of 38 Moorgate Street in London. Harding's hasty note to the Intelligencer regarding Bouchard had cost him a very hefty sum for a working entomologist and he must have deeply regretted his decision to send the warning to the editor Stainton. Although Bouchard seems to have done well out of this state of affairs, his solicitor fees were expensive and as the weather of the summer of 1860 resulting in a bad collecting season, he was asking for subscriptions from his friends and customers to help finance a collecting expedition to Scotland in the summer of 1861.
Being a professional field collector such as Bouchard or Richard Weaver who as his honour would dictate, would only sell bona-fide British specimens, money was a constant worry. Others dealers at the time were quite content to past off Foreign specimens as British, asking and getting exorbitant amounts for them. One well known and very successful London based Dealer of the 1860s & 1870s has become notorious for this, although at the time it did not stop his specimens selling, such was the obsession for British rarities, of course he and others of this ilk, sold genuine and often rare British examples they could obtain but those they could not, an agreement with a German or French dealer was set up to supply there wants for a fraction of the price that they would get from their unsuspecting or more often gullible wealthy British customers. The summer of 1860 was one of the wettest on record and the stormy winter of 1860-1861 was very cold with much snow. Bouchard wrote to Dale on the 14 January 1861 " I am sorry to say inconsequence of the last wet summer it has done me so much injury I have got a troublesome time of it to get through the winter and my future prospects depends on friends assisting me with my journeys next spring, I am opening a subscription of what I require from six or seven friends to advance me £3, the parties doing so shall be paid out of my captures before any of them are sold." Dale was in agreement and duly sent Bouchard the money.
Vising the Scottish Highlands Bouchard wrote to Dale on the 19 June 1861 from Carr Bridge in Badenoch and Strathspey, in eastern Scotland, that he was taking good things, but many were of the smaller Microlepidoptera and he would be soon to visiting another locality to look for larger species. Among the rare moths taken in Scotland during this field trip was fine series of the noctuids, Protolampra sobrina that Weaver has discovered in Scotland during 1853 and Xestia castanea, together with the Gelechiid Dichomeris juniperella. In a letter dated 18 May 1862 Bouchard asked Dale to advance him £2 and mentioned he was going in search of Thetidia smaragdaria, a now extinct British moth that was once found in the salt marshes on the coast of Essex. He also went to the Breckland in East Anglia for the rare Geometer moth known to British entomologists at this time as Lithostege nivearia Doubleday, 1849, a synonym of Lithostege griseata Denis & Schiffermüller 1775. Again on the 19 March 1863 he wrote to Dale asking for an advance on specimens of between £2 & 3 pounds, as he wished to go to collect in Wales. Bouchard wrote to Dale on the 10 July 1863 that he had met with L. nivearia (L. griseata) and they were 10s each and on 23 July he sent a pair of that species to Dale with others specimens in a box. Bouchard's last letter to Dale was written on the 24 August 1863 mentioning that he had taken a male of the immigrant Geometer Rhodometra sacraria that he had captured where he had found it four years earlier. On the 12 April 1864 Bouchard's wife had written to Dale to say that her husband had deserted her and that she was selling all his cabinets.
An Expedition to New Granada 1865.
Surprisingly for a professional entomologist that had spent his life dealing in and collecting British insects, in 1865 Bouchard set sail for a collecting expedition to Santa Marta, New Granada in present day Colombia. Samuel Stevens was acting as Bouchard's agent and in August 1865 he exhibited some of the butterflies that he had sent back to England at the Entomological Society of London, and read part of a letter dated 30 June 1865 that accompanied the collection. Bouchard informed Steven's in his letter that he was collecting about 100 miles in the interior, in a valley about seventy miles west of the Snowy Mountains, and about the same distance from the Magdelena River ; he and his native assistants had been brought into the interior on a mule's back ; and he had obtained very decent apartments in a house where the next neighbour was thirty miles off, he was in good health and spirits, and had become used to the heat of the county. However, at the November meeting of the Entomological Society Stevens informed the members of the Entomological Society of London of Bouchard's death. On his return to Santa Marta he caught a fever and died within four days. At a December meeting Stevens exhibited insects from Bouchard's second and last collection from New Granada.
Among Bouchard's Colombian collections were many notable species of Longhorn beetles, comprising 53 species, 25 of them were new to science and these were catalogued and described in the Transactions of the Entomological Society of London (1866) by Francis Polkinghorne Pascoe. Bourchard's holotypes of his Cerambycids are in the British Museum of Natural History.
Figure 8. Transactions of the Entomological Society of London (1866) New species of Cerambycidae, collected by Peter Bouchard in Colombia and described by F. P. Pascoe. Plate 20. 1. Zeale scalaris. 2. Isomerida amicta. 3. Phaea crocata 4. Apilocera postica. 5. Cydros leucurus. 6. Phoenidnus lissonotoides. 7. Neoclytus scenicus.
Battershell Gill came into the possession of Bouchard's diary after his death and he retained it until at least 1874. Battershell Gill's collection of Lepidoptera specimens was sold in April 1886 but Bouchard's diary was not listed. The diary's whereabouts are now unknown and it may have been lost. One of Bouchard's descendants in a message posted on a website was very keen to find the lost diary. It would of course be very interesting to hear from anyone that can add any information to this article. Bouchard's own private collection of British Lepidoptera was sold at J.C. Steven's auction rooms in Covent Garden, London in March 1865. The specimen's in this article were photographed at OUMNH Oxford University Museum of Natural History and the Bristol Museum.
Peter Andrews. 2019.
References.
Birchall, E., 1859 A Week at Killarney. Zoologist 17: 6766.
Birchall, E., 1867 The Irish List of Lepidoptera. Entomologist 3: 192.
Birchall, E., 1867 Irish Insect Hunting Grounds. Entomologist 3: 253.
Birchall, E.,1874 Lepidoptera of Ireland. Entomologist's Monthly Magazine 10 :153.
Birchall, E., 1874 Notodonata bicolora in Ireland. Entomologist's Monthly Magazine 10 : 230.
Bouchard, P., 1850 Capture of Lobophora polycommaria at Darenth Wood, Kent. Zoologist 8: 2793.
Bouchard, P., 1850 Capture of Spilonota pauperana in Darenth Wood, Kent, Zoologist 8: 2826.
Bourchard, P., 1853-1864 Letters to J.C. Dale. OUMNH.
Bourchard, P., 1860 Reply to Mr Harding's Caution. The Entomologist's Weekly Intelligencer 7-8: 208.
Doubleday, H., 1850 Occurrence of Zeuzera Arundinis at Whittlesea Mere. Zoologist 8: 2884.
Haynes, R.F., 1984 The Extraordinary Tale of the White Prominent Leucodonta Bicoloria D & S in County Kerry. The Entomologist's Record and Journal of Variation 96: 1-5.
Harding, H.J., 1847 Capture of Lithosia pymaeola. Zoologist 5: 2547.
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Hardy Ray, J., Battershell Gill, W., 1874 Notodonta bicolora in Ireland. The Entomologist's Monthly Magazine 10: 212-213
Newman, E., 1852 Entomological Society. Exhibition of Bouchard's Dover specimens by Edwin Shepherd. Zoologist 10: 3661-3662.
Pascoe, F.P. 1865, Entomological Society of London report. Exhibit of Bouchard's specimens by Stevens specimens from New Granada. The Entomologist's Monthly Magazine 2: 96.
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