William Deans Cowan

He was a member of the London Missionary Society who was sent to Madagascar (1874-1881), where he taught Malagasy students at Fianarantsoa.

He was an authorities collector of natural history material including lemurs, birds, reptiles, molluscs and insects that were sent to the zoology department of the British Museum (Natural History) under Albert Günther (a total of 13,000-14,000 specimens).

He also collected insects for John Obadiah Westwood,[4] birds for Alfred Newton[5] and orchids for Henry Nicholas Ridley.

He has always had an instinctive love of hunting out birds' nests, watching the habits of animals, seeking their lairs, and making himself one with them, so that he would think nothing of carrying a few snakes in his pocket, a dozen beetles or so in his hat, and a frog or lizard carefully tied up in his best handkerchief.

The series of butterflies in the collection represents rather less than one third of those hitherto recorded as occurring in Madagascar and, owing to the careful manner in which Mr. Cowan has recorded upon each envelope all facts known to him respecting the species therein contained, not a little information respecting the habits and distribution of the Mascarene forms has been gained."