British Wildlife 19.3 February 2008

Darwin’s war-horse: beetle-collecting in 19th-century England

'Those Lepidoptera are for children to play with… Give me the Coleoptera, and the king of the Coleoptera are the beetles! Lepidotpera and Neuroptera for little folks; and Coleoptera for the men, Sir!' (quoted in Linssen 1959). Well, he would say that, wouldn't he? Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894), poet and physician, was a dedicated beetle man. 

Through a naturalist’s eyes
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