This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Ptelea (talk | contribs) at 13:32, 6 January 2009. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 13:32, 6 January 2009 by Ptelea (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
.jpg)
Walter Hood Fitch
Monograph of the Genus Lilium
Henry John Elwes, FRS (16 May 1846 - 26 November 1922) was a British botanist and entomologist. Henry Elwes was one of the sixty inaugural recipients of the Victoria Medal of the Royal Horticultural Society in 1897.
Henry John was the eldest son of J H Elwes of Colesbourne Park near Cheltenham. He studied at Eton and spent five years in the Scots Guards. He then travelled to various parts of the world and studied aspects natural history including botany, entomology, ornithology and big game. Elwes was described as "a giant of a man, and a very dominating character" with "a booming voice which carried well across his Gloucestershire estate, but was very disconcerting elsewhere" . In 1886 he was made a member of the Mission through Sikkim to Tibet and he made a report of this to the Geographical Section of the British Association. He also made collection trips to Sikkim, the United Provinces, Punjab, Central Provinces, Bengal, South Canara and Travancore. His Sikkim expedition alone yielded nearly 530 records of butterflies. He wrote a monograph on the Oriental Hesperiidae along with T. Edwards. He made a trip to the Altai region in 1898. His posthumously published Memoirs (1930) includes a chapter describing a visit to Nepal in 1914, a time when Europeans were seldom admitted. He mentions an unnamed companion. It is now known that his companion was the English naturalist Aubyn Trevor-Battye, who took some of the photographs used to illustrate this chapter.. He was a Fellow of the He was the author of Monograph of the Genus Lilium (1880) and Trees of Great Britain and Ireland with Augustine Henry, as well as numerous articles. He left a collection of 30,000 butterfly specimens to the Natural History Museum, including 11,370 specimens of Palaearctic butteflies Cite error: The <ref> tag has too many names (see the help page).. Two final supplements have been published in 1960 and 1962 by William Bertram Turrill.
Works
- Elwes, H. J., On the butterflies of Amurlan, North China, and Japan, 1881, LV-LIX: 856-916
- Elwes, H. J., On the Lepidopteren of the Altai Mountains, 1899, pp. 295-367, pl. XI-XIV
- Elwes, H.J. Memoirs of Travel, Sport, and Natural History, Edited posthumously by E. G. Hawke. Benn, London, 1930.
References
- Anon (1923) Obituary: Henry John Elwes, F. R. S. The Geographical Journal 61(4):311
- Riley, N. D. History of Department of Entomology, p. 212.
- Stearn, W. T. Natural History Museum, p. 212.
- Rao, B R Subba (1998) History of Entomology in India. Institution of Agricultural Technologists. Bangalore.
- This visit is described in an unpublished manuscript: Indian Journal 1914 by Aubyn Trevor-Battye, now in the possession of A.T-B's descendants, along with the original photographs