The Butterfly Hunter: The Life of Henry Walter Bates - Softcover

Crawforth, Dr Anthony

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1908684585 ISBN 13: 9781908684585

Publisher: University of Buckingham Press, 2018

Synopsis

This is the epic, true and long overdue story of the young explorer who put forward the first ever case for the creation of a new species, providing what Charles Darwin called the "beautiful proof" for Natural Selection.

The major discovery of Batesian Mimicry was developed from Bates's fascinating 11-year journey and study of butterflies in the Amazon rainforest. He noted how certain animals adopt the look of others to deceive predators and gain an advantage to survive.

Little known to the public, Bates made other crucial contributions to biology: he collected over 14,000 specimens, of which over 8,000 were new to science at the time. He went on to become the administrator for the Royal Geographical Society and transformed it into an institution which combined exploration with academic research, and was responsible for placing geography on the school curriculum.

This important book reassesses Bates's life and finally places both the man and his work in their rightful place alongside the other greats.

About this title

About the Author

Anthony Crawforth was born in Coventry in 1934. Educated at King Henry VIII School, he joined the Army for his National Service in 1952 and left as a Colonel in 1979. He then went to City University where he gained his MA in Museum Management whilst taking up an appointment as administrator for the Rothschild family at Waddesdon Manor. Leaving there in 1996, he became a lecturer at the University of Buckingham in their Arts and Heritage Management undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. Fascinated by Henry Walter Bates since his childhood he studied for his PhD in Biography at Buckingham with Bates as his subject. Married with three children and six grandchildren he now lives in Buckinghamshire. He is a Fellow of the Linnaean Society.

Review

Henry Walter Bates (1825-1892) led an extraordinary life, around the time of Darwin. He was dedicated to locating and identifying butterflies, particularly in South America. Crawforth (PhD candidate, biography, Buckingham U) offers this fascinating history discussing the evolution of an evolutionary man, his origins and younger days in Leicester, his life-changing journey to South America, his travels throughout the landscape of South America in search of his butterflies, the theories he developed and promoted, and, by extension, his work and his role in the perspective of Darwin.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Buckingham Press
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1908684585
• ISBN 13: 9781908684585
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320