Anthony Crawforth - The Butterfly Hunter: The Life Of Henry Walter Bates

Batess butterflies are important because they tell us more about the man and his meticulous habits. Any specimen to be of scientific value must bear a label giving the all-important information about its collection available at the time of capture. Batess specimen labels, in his own hand, indicate the extent and detail of his precise journeys. Tracing Batess original specimens is often difficult as it is the fate of most individual gifts to major museums to be assimilated within the core series. This enriches the overall collection as a foundation for taxonomic study. From the historical perspective, this often results in vital information being lost but individual collections can be reconstructed as long as specimens still bear their unique labels. Restoration work has recently been undertaken on Batess Amazon butterflies now held in the BMNH.

Some of his specimens are illustrated in Batess, Contributions to an insect fauna of the Amazon valley. Lepidoptera: Heliconiinae. Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London. (1862) vol XXIII plate 56.

Plate 17.

Figure numbers are top figs 4, 5, 6, second row figs 4a, 6a, third row figs 7, 8, fourth row figs 7a, 8a.

This plate illustrates various species of Leptalis (4, 6, 7, and 8) that mimic the heliconid butterflies with which they associate (4a, 6a, 7a, and 8a) the Leptalis thereby gaining protection by looking like the heliconids, which are probably toxic to predators.

Fig. 4. Leptalis theono, var. leucono. - So Paulo de Olivena.

Fig. 4a. Ithomia llerdina (Hewitson). - So Paulo de Olivena. This Leptalis appears at first sight a distinct species, but it is a modification whose adaptation is complete.

Fig. 5. Leptalis nehemia (Bates). - New Granada. Figured to show the normal form of the family Pieridae, to which Leptalis belongs. The contrast this species shows with the remainder of its family points to the conclusion that all other Leptalis illustrated divert from the family type after a long continued process of adaptation to look like the Heliconiidae as each species associates and flies with its Heliconian model.

Fig. 6. Leptalis theono, var. argochlo. - So Paulo de Olivena.

Fig. 6a. Ithomia virginia (Hewitson). - So Paulo de Olivena. The links of modification can be seen also with respect to this apparently distinct Leptalis.

Fig. 7. Leptalis amphione, var. egana. - Ega (Tef).

Fig. 7a. Mechanitis polymnia, var. egansis. - Ega (Tef).

Fig. 8. Leptalis orise (Boisduval). - Cupar; also Cayenne.

Fig. 8a. Methona psidii (Linnaeus). - Cupar; also Cayenne.

Bates documented this material, in a successive series of articles read at the Linnean and Entomological societies meetings under the title Contributions to an Insect Fauna of the Amazon Valley: 1860-61 covering Papilionidae.

Apart from labels, specimens had to be described and Batess vibrant descriptions of his butterflies bring alive the glorious living insect that would otherwise lie hidden behind its formal description. Contemporary writers often referred to Batess work and used his descriptions in their own work, as was the case with the Rev J G Wood in his book Foreign Insects where he says:

this extremely rare insect, which is figured here, is not in the British Museum. [So it must have been in private hands] Mr. Bates, who named it after his daughter, captured it.

He then quotes Batess description of the Butterfly and its habits:

Slaty green, silky fore wings above, with many black or dusky variously shaped spots, nearly all of which are margined with a paler hue. Besides these dark spots, there are ten or twelve pale brown spots, one, or two between each of the longitudinal nervures. Margins of the wings black. Hind wings with a row of black eyes running parallel with the margin and edged with green-some of them have slate green pupils.

Beneath, the forewing ochreous at base, the rest of the wing dark brown, with three belts of white spots. Hind wing, clear saffron yellow; outer margin black, with ochreous spots between.

Plate 18.
Ageronia Alicia named after Alice Bates

Plate 19.
Ageronia Alicia named after Alice Bates

Wood again uses Batess descriptions for the genus Zeonia this time with details taken from a letter from Bates to Adam White, another contemporary collector, dated Tef, 2nd May 1857, and reprinted for general interest in the transactions of the entomological society.

The beautiful Zeonia, of which I sent you a large series last July, I met with in a part of the forest near Ega, which I had traversed and examined before, many times, in all seasons. The first, specimen I found was a straggler in a different part of the forest. On July the 21st, after a month of unusually dry and hot weather, in ascending a slope in the forest by a broad pathway mounting from a moist hollow, choked up with monstrous arums and other marsh plants I was delighted to see another of what had always been so exceedingly rare a group of butterflies; it crossed the path in a series of rapid jerks, and settled on a leaf close before me. Before I had secured it I saw another, and then shortly after a third. I mounted to the summit of the slope, followed a branch pathway which led along the brow of the ridge, without seeing any more, but returned again to examine well the exact spot where I had captured the three, for it very often happens that a species is confined to a few square yards of space in the vast forest, which to our perceptions offers no difference throughout its millions of acres to account for the preference. I entered the thicket from the pathway, and a few yards therein found a small sunny opening, where many of the Zeonia were flitting; about from one leaf to another, meeting one another, gamboling, and fighting; their blue transparent tinge, brilliant crimson patch, and long, tails, all very visible in the momentary intervals between the jerks in their flight. I was very busy, you may imagine, at first in securing a supply of specimens; I caught perhaps 150, two-thirds of which fell to pieces in the bottom of the net, so fragile is their texture. [So collecting perfect specimens for cabinets was not necessarily easy] I then paused to look around the locality, and endeavoured to find the larva; and pupae.

I walked through the thicket in all directions, and found the space peopled by the species was not more than from twenty to thirty square yards in extent: as far as the eye could reach, the leaves were peopled with them; it is possible the brood belonged to some one tree. The only two pupa; I could find it is true, were on two distinct kinds of trees, but this is no proof that the larvae may not have fed on one tree only. I was disappointed at not finding the larvae, although I searched well during this and the three following days.