A British Butterfly Collector on the Texas Frontier

To those in their youth who chased butterflies and encountered obstacles such as fences, creeks, rocks, logs, and through gardens and farm fields and over and through meadows and marshes and along the edges of woods where poison ivy and thistles grew, this book is dedicated. To those who studied butterflies in labs will know the following scene in Chapter One: “Atop a table were paraphernalia for the mounting of butterfly wings such as spreading boards, paper strips, forceps and positioning pins. Atop another table sat rearing cages of butterfly and moth larvae feeding on food plants. Insect cases with glass-topped drawers lined walls with the un-mistaking aroma of naphthalene crystals used for repelling insect pests.” Chapter One: “Please enter and please sit,” British entomologist Edward Doubleday asked as he motioned butterfly collector Kenneth (Ken) Stanley to a chair next to his roll-top desk with its pigeon holes cluttered. “If you are willing to collect butterflies and moths for me in Texas I can pay your travel expenses and funds for your subsistence, equipment needed and work expenses, and pay you a salary plus commissions for the numbers of specimens you ship back.” Chapter Two: In early February, 1840, the 65 foot 40 ton schooner, Hannah Elizabeth, set sail out of Plymouth harbor, England, with Ken Stanley aboard , and under a full set of her canvas mains, staysails, jibs and the towering topsails the schooner turned well-heeled along the Southern Sailing Route to America. Chapter Three: Castilian señorita, Sally Maria Reyna Robles, sat reading in the shade of the roofed front porch of her four room log cabin. When engrossed in an especially stirring subject Sally could be unmindful of all else going on around her and sat not yet aware of a stranger’s approach until she heard a friendly “hello” called out by Ken Stanley standing at her gate. Chapter Four: As planned, Ken and Sally met early that next morning to have a full day together collecting butterflies in the Pineywoods north of Houston. Ken carried a carbine in a saddle holster in case of Indian encounters and a net across the pommel of his saddle if needed on a fast chase on his horse and a swing of it like a polo mallet to catch a fast flying butterfly. Chapter Six: On an early morning in April of1840 twenty year-old Ken and eighteen year-old Sally with her red wolf pet, Growler, set off across Texas in an ox-drawn covered wagon with Sally steering and Ken riding alongside horseback and the two stopping occasionally to collect butterflies in the fields of wildflowers and prairie grasses. Chapters Seven through Seventeen: The storylines continue of their fun-filled adventures across Texas to collect butterflies and moths but with frightening encounters between Native Americans and European and Anglo-American settlers. The book has much in it on Texas pioneer history and observations of natural history subjects. Five Chapters in parts are of Native Americans, especially the Comanches. The book has 50 plus black and white images mostly of Texas butterflies and moths and 30 plus References to storylines in the book. Covers of both hardback books with dust jackets and softback books are in full color.