15
to continue his studies and writing. Willughby had
studied insects extensively and late in life, when he
was over 60, Ray acquired his notes and felt it his
duty to his friend to complete and expand the work he
had begun. Accordingly, in 1690 Ray began to study
insects in earnest and to work on his book, written
in Latin, entitled Historia Insectorum. By this time
the collecting of insects was already becoming a
popular pastime and friends such as the apothecary
Petiver supplied him with material. Soon, in 1692, Ray
discovered a species new to Britain; this was the
purple hairstreak, which was described by Petiver as
"Mr. Ray's purple streak". Four years later, Ray
found the larva and described the life history.
Ray's work is full of new information, but statements
that he was the first to describe a number of species
are incorrect, and based on lack of familiarity with
earlier authors. He was, however, the first to
describe the purple emperor, after having been given
a specimen captured at Castle Hedingham in July, 1695.
This must have been a female, since Ray makes no mention
of the purple gloss. The purple emperor may have
been rarer then than today, since it was 47 years
before the male was figured and 63 before the life
history was discovered. This was another Essex
"first". On the 26th May, 1758 the apothecary and
naturalist Dru Drury was beating sallows for larvae
at Brentwood when four green larvae with horns on their
heads fell into his tray. Their identity was a
mystery and he gave one to Moses Harris who duly bred
out a male purple emperor on the 23rd June. On plate
3 of The Aurelian (1766) Harris depicts the Essex
larva and pupa and maybe the adult is the same individual.
Apart from this incident, little is heard of entomology
in Essex during the 18th century, in marked contrast
to the first half of the 19th. The first name is
Laetitia Jermyn. She lived in Ipswich, but in her
A butterfly collector's vade mecum she gives many