The library of the Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge
Wednesday 22 July 2009
Rare book on display in the library
The Lepidoptera of Ceylon, by F. Moore. Vols. 1-3. London: L. Reeve & Co.; 1880-1887.
Balfour Library class mark: qQN (1)
The book is open at: Plate 63 (from vol. 1): specimens of Papilionidae (swallowtail butterflies). This plate shows amazingly detailed bright green and subtle yellow coloured butterflies from different angles, as well as their pupae and caterpillars.
Frederic Moore (1830-1907) was a distinguished entomologist and a prominent Fellow of the Entomological Society for more than 50 years. He was also a Fellow of the Zoological Society and was elected an Associate of the Linnean Society in 1881. He joined the staff of the East India Museum in 1848 and worked there as Assistant Curator until its absorption with the British Museum in 1879. Moore’s principal interest was in Indian lepidoptera; his obituary in The Zoologist states “He was a pioneer in the study of Indian Lepidoptera, and he knew these insects intimately better than any man living”. He was also a talented botanical and zoological artist.
His principal works are A Catalogue of the Lepidopterous Insects in the Museum of the Hon. East India Company, two vols. (1857-59), and The Lepidoptera of Ceylon, three vols. (1880-87). He was working on his major title Lepidoptera Indica at the time of his death; six volumes were published after his death and a further four have been published since, written by Col. C. Swinhoe.
The illustrations for The Lepidoptera of Ceylon are by two Singhalese artists, the brothers William and George de Alwis who worked as botanical artists at the Botanical Garden at Peradeniya. The Director of the Botanical Garden, G. H. K. Thwaites, was greatly impressed by William de Alwis’ botanical drawings and recommended to Sir W. H. Gregory, the Governor of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) that William should undertake a project to draw from nature the butterflies and moths of Ceylon. Thwaites supervised the drawings, many of which were illustrations of specimens he had collected himself. George de Alwis was also employed to copy some of the drawings already made and to prepare new ones.
The brothers’ drawings were, according to the Natural History Museum which owns the De Alwis Drawings Collection “considered to be of such accuracy that they were used by a number of authors publishing on the lepidoptera of Ceylon”. The 71 original watercolour drawings “depict with great accuracy the adult butterflies and moths, their larvae and pupae and occasionally associated food plants”. The drawings were lithographed and reproduced as colour plates in this book by Moore. The Balfour & Newton Libraries’ copy of this work was donated by the Governor of Ceylon.
Sources:
Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London (1907-08): 56.
W. L. Distant. The Zoologist (4) (1907) 11: 239.
Entomologist’s Monthly Magazine (1907) 43: 162.
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