collectors

A perfectly preserved butterfly specimen was discovered pressed between the pages of a 390-year-old book found on the endless Cambridge University Library shelves. The find has generated much excitement, as the preserved butterfly, a Small Tortoiseshell (pictured above), is perhaps as old as the book itself! The book has been the property of Trinity Hall, Cambridge since 1996. It is a first edition of Thomas Moffet’s (or Muffet’s) seminal work, The Theatre of Insects, which was published posthumously in 1634, and is England’s oldest recorded work on insects. A physician and naturalist by profession, Moffet wrote, compiled, studied and published a series of individual and collaborative works documenting silkworms, moths, butterflies and other flies. Popular legend has it, that the