J. W. Tutt

He was a founding editor of the journal Entomologists' Record from 1890 and published a landmark series on the British Lepidoptera in which he described numerous species of moths[1] and was among the first to notice industrial melanism in the pepper moth Biston betularia and was among the first to provide a clear explanation of their increasing frequency based on the role of crypsis, natural selection by predators, and the effect of changed environmental conditions brought on by industrialism.

Tutt was interested in insects from the age of thirteen but became more scientific after meeting lepidopterist George Coverdale in 1881.

He noted this in Yorkshire and provided a selectionist (based on Darwinian natural selection) explanation synthesized from ideas proposed by contemporaries including Buchanan White and Nicholas Cooke.

He has watched them on the flow’rs Where they’ll sit and suck for hours, Quite devoid of any motion Save absorption of the ’lotion.

Lost illusion of our youth In a scientific truth, Tear drops gather in our eyes When we think of butterflies.