Dockery M., Logunov D.V. 2015. David Longsdon (1864–1937) and his collection of swallowtail butterflies (Papilionidae) at the Manchester Museum // Russian Entomol. J. Vol.24. No.2: 155–179 [in English].
Department of Entomology, The Manchester Museum, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK; email: MD — m.dockery@talktalk.net DL — dmitri.v.logunov@manchester.ac.uk
KEY WORDS: Lepidoptera, Papilionidae, butterfly collection, Aurelian collectors, archive, history.
ABSTRACT. David Longsdon’s world collection of Papilionidae was bequeathed to The Manchester Museum in 1938 on Longsdon’s death. The collection is very comprehensive and consists of 9,301 specimens representing 504 species in 26 genera and accounting for some 87% of all described species of Papilionidae. The collection also contains 51 type specimens (syntypes and two paralectotypes) of 21 species names, of which four are still valid. The butterflies were collected in the last decade of the 19th century and the first three and a half decades of the 20th century. In the early years of the 20th century Longsdon began bargaining with three well-established natural history suppliers (Swinhoe, Rosenberg and ‘Staudinger and Bang-Haas’) and assiduously retained all these dealings in an archive. A detailed study of the relationships with his three major suppliers of butterflies revealed how tenacious he was in getting value for money for his purchases. The archive also highlights how the world of the well off British armchair collector of tropical butterflies contrasted sharply with the risky nature of the collector in the field, who had to cope with many hazards in collecting insects for the Victorian and Edwardian Aurelians.