Accession No

6252

Brief Description

butterfly catching and mounting kit, including net, specimen boxes and specimen display boxes, which belonged to Geoffrey Keynes, 20th Century

Origin

Maker

Class

natural history

Earliest Date

1900

Latest Date

1990

Inscription Date

Material

wood (various); paper (cardboard, paper); metal (brass and others); ivory; cork; glass; leather; textile (netting)

Dimensions

wooden cigar box: butterfly net: specimen boxes: diameter, oval metal box: hinged wooden box: wooden specimen display box:

Special Collection

Provenance

Donated by an individual on or before 03/2009.

Inscription

Description Notes

Butterfly kit, 20th century.
Kit includes:
- wooden cigar box (not original to set) which contains:
-2 x envelopes of labels for butterfly specimens (one has original
label of donor’s father’s address on front)
- 1 x box entomological pins
- 1 pair of scissors
- 1 x pair of pliers
- 1 x pair of metal tongs with scalloped ends
- 1 x compass
- 1 x miscellaneous metal instrument with sharp pointed end
- 2 x ivory handled instruments with sharp pointed ends in cork for
protection

- 1x metal framed butterfly net

- 2 x sets of five circular specimen boxes (five different sizes inside one another)

- 2 sets of three circular specimen boxes (three different sizes inside one another)

- 1 x oval metal box lined with cork containing:
- specimen pins of various sizes
- 1 x miscellaneous sharp pointed instrument

- 1 x small hinged wooden box with internal compartments containing;
- 1 x empty glass stoppered bottle
- various specimen labels of two kinds
- 1 x leather cloth
- 4 x ivory handled sharp pointed instruments
- 5 x loose ivory handles without ends
- 1 x miscellaneous brass hook

- 1 x large hinged wooden specimen display box

All objects in a good/fair condition.

References

Events

Description
This kit includes equipment needed to catch and mount butterflies. It belonged to Geoffrey Keynes, who became an amateur lepidopterist (a person who studies or collects butterflies and moths) as a child. He spent his childhood summers in Yorkshire, Cornwall, Switzerland, and elsewhere, collecting butterflies with his father, John Neville Keynes.

In his autobiography, The Gates of Memory, he recalls their technique for keeping the butterfly specimens in perfect condition: "After being caught in a butterfly net the insect was transferred to a glass-bottomed box of a size to suit the species, where it could be examined to see that it was of the right kind and in a condition to make it worth keeping. If not, it was set free. The chosen victims were put in a satchel, where they would respond to the darkness by staying quiet instead of battering themselves to pieces on the walls of their prisons. Back in our hotel rooms in the evening we about the slow work of preserving them. Each insect was stupefied by a drop of chloroform introduced into its box of a wisp of cotton wool, and then re-examined to make sure that it was worth keeping; if not, it was allowed to recover from the anaesthetic and released the next day. If worthy, its thorax was pierced with a needle carrying a tin amount of nicotine to ensure that it died painlessly. It was then transfixed with a silver pin, which would not corrode, and set, while it was still limp, on a cork setting board of suitable size, the wings being fixed in the correct position under slips of paper. They remained in this position until the paper slips were removed after we had returned home, the setting boards being carried in strong wooden boxes to ensure that they suffered no damage in transit." Many of the items described can be found in the kit in the Museum.

Geoffrey Keynes went on to become a physician and surgeon, for which he was knighted in 1955. In The Gates of Memory, he says that his butterfly collecting helped train his hands for the delicate skills needed as a surgeon.
25/04/2023
Created by: Morgan Bell on 25/04/2023

FM:46731