Nature Book Reader June 2020 - Flipbook - Page 42
A Nature Book Reader
PAUL EVANS
Paul Evans is a wanderer of woods, a country diarist for the Guardian, author
of Field Notes from the Edge (2015), Herbaceous (2014) and senior
lecturer in creative writing at MMU Cheshire.
Beetles of the British Isles
Vols. 1&2 - The Wayside & Woodland series
“Why do you collect such
common beetles?” asked the
entomologist at the Natural
History Museum. I had
proudly shown him some
of my specimens and asked
for confirmation on their
identification. Faced with such
snooty contempt at the age
of twelve might have been a
crushing put-down, but to me
there was nothing common
about beetles. I was common,
went to a common school,
lived in the commonplace,
but the plants and animals
that inhabited the same
world I did were bloody
extraordinary.
I was very keen on natural
history, loved everything
about it but was particularly
drawn to beetles. No one I
knew was into them but I
found them more fascinating,
strange and beautiful than
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birds or butterflies. I forget
how I came by them but I
think I had been given the two
Linssen volumes on British
beetles. Beetles were magical.
Written in 1959 for the
Wayside and Woodland series,
which had emerged from
the increasing popularity of
natural history in the previous
century, Linssen was writing
on the threshold between
very different worlds. I
picked his volumes up in the
mid sixties and already they
felt old fashioned. Linssen
and his contemporary
naturalists may have thought
of this work as modern; they
were far more accessible
in style and price than
books from the Edwardian
tradition. I liked the sense
of authority, the no-messing
getting into taxonomy,
structure, metamorphosis,
