HUMPHREYS, Henry Noel (illus.); WESTWOOD, John Obadiah.

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British Butterflies and Their Transformations. First edition of this splendidly illustrated book, one of Humphreys's most accomplished works as a naturalist illustrator. It is a collaboration with the leading entomologist John Westwood, who contributed the letterpress. A skilled artist trained in Brussels, Humphreys became interested in natural history after a tour of Italy. Upon his return, he settled in London as a neighbour of a relative, the landscape architect and prolific author J. C. Loudon. Humphreys is "deservedly remembered for his extensive and significant contribution to the commercially produced book" (ODNB). He wrote for a series of garden periodicals, including Loudon's Gardener's Magazine, and published two entomological works with Westwood: the present work on butterflies, and subsequently British Moths and Their Transformations (1843-45). Both proved extremely popular. Westwood (1805-1893) was one of the first entomologists to obtain an academic position at Oxford University and he founded, with Frederick William Hope, the Entomological Society of London. In 1846, the name Westwoodia was given in his honour to a genus of Hymenoptera. He was himself a skilled insect illustrator, contributing drawings to several publications between the 1820s and the the 1840s.

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