The female of the species

They may be championed by Sir David Attenborough now, but the first women entomologists had to overcome great prejudice to study insects, reports Ian Morton

- Ian Morton

THE Middle Ages were not a happy time for insects: they were viewed as the creation and instruments of the Devil, not credited with a life cycle and widely supposed to emerge with Satanic spontaneity from ponds and rivers. Although the Greeks took a soulful view of butterflies and called them Psyche, our folkloric superstition regarded butterflies and moths as witches in disguise or spirits intent on mischief. Butterflies, specifically, were thought to steal or curdle cream and butter, a dairy disaster in a medieval kitchen—hence their name, a warning rather than an appreciation of their flutter-by flight. It followed that, in an era when learning and science were regarded as a male prerogative, women who forsook the traditional domestic pursuits and showed an intelligent interest in the natural world were also deemed to be suspect

The late 17th century saw the dawning of entomological enlightenment for women. Eleanor Glanville (1654–1709), a gentlewoman given the honorary title of Lady by friends, became the first English female entomologist to devote herself to the study and collection of butterfly specimens, although her reputation suffered for her enthusiasm. Lady Glanville’s studies were misinterpreted, gossiping neighbours claimed darkly that, when looking for caterpillars, she ‘beat the hedges for worms’ and estranged family members contested her will. As 18th-century entomologist Moses Harris put it, they ‘attempted to let it aside by Acts of Lunacy, for they suggested that none but those who were deprived of their Senses would go in Pursuit of Butterflies’.