The Insectarium by Harland Coultas: book review

The Insectarium – Collecting, Arranging and Preserving Bugs, Beetles, Butterflies and More – With Practical Instructions to Assist the Amateur Home Naturalist by Harland Coultas (2018) is a vintage insect guide republished for a contemporary audience. It was originally written for entomologists and naturalists, and retains the original text, illustrations, and artwork.

Harland Coultas (1817-1877) was a British botanist born in North Lincolnshire. Most of his works were written from the 1850s. His most well-known article is ‘What may be learned from a tree’ written for the New York Times on 4 August 1860, reproduced from his book of the same title.

Insects are arthropods, such as beetles, cockroaches, ants, bees, grasshoppers, flies, moths, and butterflies.

An insectarium in a commercial, artificial habitat with glass sides, enabling people to view and study insects (6-legged creatures) in a more-or-less similar replication of their usual habitat. It can also include 8-legged arachnids (spiders) and other non-insect arthropods, such as multi-legged millipedes and centipedes. It can also be a wooden habitat or other contraption for viewing insects.

The book has two sections: I – On the Capture of Insects, and II – The Insectarium. Section I discusses beetles, moths, and butterflies. Section II covers its origins, construction, temperature regulation, the types of insects suitable for an insectarium, breeding, preservation, and parasites.

It is poetic in parts (even with a William Wordsworth poem), as well as technical and practical for the most part (with examples of British insects). This is a brief 43-page read, without an introduction or contextual background to its author and the science of the times.

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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international human rights-based consultant in education, healing and wellbeing, peace and stabilization, foreign aid audits and evaluations, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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