Most Amazing Experience

British Museum of Natural History, London, England

I was in the United States Navy from 1967 - 1970. We were deployed to the Mediterranean Sea on a 6 month cruise at the time ending with a stop at Portsmouth England. I had years earlier purchased butterflies from a place in Brighton England called World Wide Butterfly Limited. They had a shop right down town at that time, so my first stop was going to be Brighton. London would wait for another day.

When I found the little shop I had hope to see specimens of the then little know rare Birdwing Butterflies that they had for sale from time to time. One of the hardest to obtain at the time and going for well over 90 British pounds just for a male was Ornithoptera croesus lydius. It was on their listings not that long ago and I had hoped to see one. They had lots of other species to look at but no Birdwings when I was there.

The manager of the shop being a very nice person and apparently liking the US Navy kindly told me although he did not have what I was looking for in stock, if I was on my way to London and had a minute, all was not lost. Making a phone call I heard him ask if he had the British Museum of Natural History and could he speak to a Dr. Vane-Wright. He told Dr. Vane-Wright that he had an American Sailor in his shop and could he find the time to show him some Birdwing Butterflies when he got to London.

Hanging up the phone he said if I would go to the British Museum of Natural History and to the floor with the big butterfly exhibit there would be a door to the left of the display, go there and ask for Dr. Vane-Wright, he would be expecting me. I found Dr. Vane-Wright to be a caring person and eager to show off the collections. I was completely flabbergasted. After showing me where the Ornithoptera were housed in that vast collection, he left me to look on my own while he worked at one of the many tables, coming to him only when I needed help finding some particular species I was hoping to see.

So for many hours that afternoon, I pulled out insect drawer after insect drawer, looking at Birdwing after Birdwing. You talk about awesome. Every time I pulled out a drawer every specimen data label would say the same thing on it, Rothschild, some would say holotype, some would say allotype and others said paratype but one thing they all had in common, they were all Rothschild originals. Specimens sent back by those like A.S.Meek and others from their expeditions which Rothschild and his colleagues had named types and used for the original descriptions of the different Ornithoptera species being discovered at that time; dates also agreed with much of what I had read of the discoveries.

Every time I think back about that afternoon I get excited all over again at having seen firsthand the specimens that go with the dates and locations and discoveries I had read about over and over again.

I sent correspondence to Dr. Vane-Wright several time after that and he always graciously took the time to write me back. Awesome, awesome that’s all I can say. I’ll never forget it.