Martin Warren - Butterflies: A Natural History

My early inspiration came from books like The Young Specialist Looks At Butterflies by Georg Warnecke (1964) and A Butterfly Book for the Pocket by Edmund Sandars (1939).

To begin with, my bibles were The Young Specialist book on butterflies and Edmund Sandars A Butterfly Book for the Pocket, although I soon graduated to The Observers Book of Butterflies and The Observers Book of Larger Moths, and then on to more grown-up books. They told me a little about rearing caterpillars and a bit about their intricate life-cycles. But the details were sketchy at best, and I had to learn the hard way, by trial and error. Of course there were casualties, but each failure spurred me on to do better next time, and learn more about my craft. For example, I remember my disappointment when a plump little moth emerged from its cocoon with what I thought were deformed wings. But, as it turned out, the moth was perfectly healthy. It was a female Vapourer moth, which is naturally wingless (in fact it has vestigial wings that are incapable of flight). A harsher lesson happened when a caterpillar erupted into clusters of white parasitic cocoons. But my initial horror turned to fascination as I read about the life of these tiny flies which lay their eggs inside an egg or caterpillar and feed inside the living body until ready to burst out, alien-like, from the dying host.

It was not long before I began to gravitate towards butterflies. They were easier to see than moths, especially when they gathered to feed on the large Buddleja bush in the garden: including colourful Peacocks, Small Tortoiseshells, Red Admirals. I found other butterflies as we walked the chalk hills near my home in Dunstable, Bedfordshire. I was lucky to have a mentor in an elderly neighbour who owned an impressive hoard of bird eggs (gathered in the days when bird-nesting was still legal) as well as a collection of pinned butterflies and moths. Under his guidance I made a small collection of my own, trying to get a male and female of each species. With my two chums, Bob and Barney, I scoured the downs and lanes in search of new species. As Peter Marren remarks in his eulogy to butterflies, Rainbow Dust (2015), we were the last generation to collect butterflies with a clear conscience. Today the net and the killing bottle have long since been replaced by the camera.

My collecting phase was short-lived. For me, dead butterflies were no match for living ones and I began to travel further afield in search of more exotic species. In time, this childhood crush turned into a fascination for butterflies that has lasted my whole life. By great good fortune I was able to turn it into a career. When I graduated in zoology at Imperial College London, I had first thought of a medical career. But instead, partly inspired by Rachel Carsons