Reviewed by Larry Lund
William Leach, a highly regarded historian, has written an engaging and brilliant book about America’s nineteenth century infatuation with butterflies. His 2013 book, Butterfly People: An American Encounter with the Beauty of the World, is not only compelling prose but is beautifully illustrated.
According to Leach, earlier enthusiasts described butterflies as “flying flowers” or “winged jewels”. Their beauty led Americans into a deeper understanding of the natural world “setting them on paths to lifetime fulfillment.” He wrote that Lord Alfred Wallace (1823-1913), co-founder of evolution theory, upon collecting one specimen said:
“On taking it out of my net and opening the glorious wings my heart began to beat violently, the blood rushed to my head, and I felt more like fainting than I have done when in apprehension of death. I had a headache the rest of the day.”
William Leach tells how Americans were inspired by that sort of enthusiasm in the pursuit of butterflies during the nineteenth century. But change was on the horizon. He maintains that the enthusiasm for butterflies was coincident with – and eventually replaced by – the wonders of technology often on display at world’s fairs and commercial shows.
Leach says “at great cost” to American’s interest in the natural world the growing interest in human-made objects soon took precedence over nature in general and butterflies in particular. Stated in his occasionally grandiloquent manner, Leach wrote:
“This was an extraordinary moment: beauty of a natural kind appearing in tandem with beauty of an artificial kind, each competing for dominion of the American soul.”
Prominent among the nineteenth century American “butterfly people” Leach describes are Samuel Scudder (1837-1911) and William Henry Edwards (1822-1909). He engagingly describes their lives and their debates on many topics, including life histories, taxonomy, and evolution. Charles Darwin’s (1809-1882) theories of evolution and natural selection have a prominent presence in the book, especially pertaining to arguments between Louis Agassiz (considered one of America’s foremost naturalists, yet adamantly opposed to Darwin’s theories) and Samuel Scudder, Agassiz’s student at Harvard.
Scudder and Edwards made major contributions to the study of butterflies, each writing three-volume tomes. According to Leach, Volume 2 of Edwards’ The Butterflies of North America is considered to be the best book ever written on American butterflies. While many naturalists were adamant about calling butterflies by their scientific name, Scudder gave common names to many, including Danaus plexippus, which he considered regal and thus named it Monarch.
Famed lepidopterist Vladimir Nabokov considered Scudder’s contributions to be enormously significant, saying the 1889 three-volume, 1,500-page The Butterflies of the Eastern United States and Canada, “inaugurated a new era in lepidopterology.”
Presaging David Nunnallee and David James, Leach wrote that William Henry Edwards emphasized that to “know a butterfly species from egg to caterpillar to pupa to adult (and sometimes different forms of adult in the same species), you had to raise it yourself. He had jam jars and kegs in his home, housing pupae that would be heated by the fireplaces, and butterflies would flit from room to room.” Edwards would have been impressed with the monumental achievement of David James’ and David Nunnallee’s book, Life Histories of Cascadia Butterflies.
Butterfly nets, Leach points out, were ubiquitous in American homes during the heyday of natural history. He has much to say about collecting and states his opinions quite fancifully:
“It was a way of knowing science and nature, but it was more than that. Collecting exposed a hidden generative realm, shared by both human beings and butterflies, that imparted to many an overpowering feeling of being alive and of knowing that this is who you are and why you are. James Tutt, one of the foremost butterfly men of England in the late nineteenth century, wrote that collecting connected the collector not only to the butterfly but to the context in which the butterfly existed, the flowers and carrion it fed upon, the surrounding insects and predatory birds, the ambient air, the sunlight, the blended smells, climaxing in an “exquisite sense of enjoyment” nothing could replicate
By the end of the nineteenth century, Leach writes that in addition to the great works of Samuel Scudder, William Henry Edwards, and several others, foundational literature on butterflies had been produced including lists, catalogs, and guidebooks. He concludes his book with a concise but interesting narration covering the final years of the magnificently committed and eccentric “butterfly people.”
Leach is hopeful that America’s passion for butterflies can be revived. A question remains, he says: “How do you get children to connect with the richness of the natural world?” Perhaps, he answers, “it is as simple as heading outside with a homemade butterfly net and a racing heart.”
G’num2013Vol14No3