Yesterday afternoon I noticed a Red Admiral butterfly on the flowers of my kusagi tree. Known to entomologists as Vanessa atalanta, they are related to the painted ladies, emperors, monarchs, tortoiseshells and fritillaries. More details about one of our most striking butterflies can be found on the UK Butterflies website.
The name Red Admirable has sometimes been said to be the original spelling. The use of Admirable as the name for this butterfly is not recorded before 1742, according to the OED. The use of Admirable appears to have been a simple error or due to a folk etymology though, as I mention later, it could have been motivated by politics.
Unnamed butterfly on nettle leaves.
De Europischen Insecten by Maria Sibylla Merian (Amsterdam, 1730)
From the Biodiversity Heritage Library.
"The Admiral" seems to be the first form of the name, probably coined by the apothecary and natural historian James Petiver in his Musei Petiveriani Centuria Quarta & Quinta (the Fourth and Fifth Hundred of Petiver's Museum), published in 1699. Petiver invented English names for many butterflies in that work. Some of those names are now forgotten but some, like fritillary, still used.
Petiver was very ambitious and had frenetically built up a worldwide network of scientific correspondents and collectors of biological specimens, despite his occasionally impatient and offensive letters. These connections were made through European scientists, trading ships, the English and Dutch East India Companies, slavers including the Royal African Company, the army and missionaries.
The Royal Society evolved out of a group formed in 1660 after a lecture by Christopher Wren. Wren is most famous for being the architect who helped rebuild London after the Great Fire in 1666 and particularly for St Paul's Cathedral. Wren was also what we would now call a scientist with a wide range of interests including anatomy, astronomy, mathematics and physics. Charles II had an early interest in the group and in 1663 they received his charter to become the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge. Petiver was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society on the 27th of November 1695 and was very proud of his recognition by them. The title page of his first Century, published in 1695, has him as Pharmacop. Londinens. & Regiæ Societatis Socio (London Apothecary and Fellow of the Royal Society).
At that time the Admiral of the Fleet of the English navy was in charge of the Red Squadron and so was called the Admiral of the Red, being senior to the Admirals of Blue and White. The OED suggests the name of the butterfly was a reference to the rich dress of the highest officer of the Navy or the red ensign that was the emblem of the Admiral.
The Red Ensign of the 17th century, showing a distinct
lack of the black that would make it as smart as a butterfly.
Artist: Martocticvs on Wikicommons.
Petiver later included a definition of the general class of butterflies that he called Admirals in his commentary on the pioneering explorer Madam Maria Sibylla Merian's Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium. This edition was published in 1767, long after the death of both Petiver and Merian:
SECT. II. ADMIRALS, viz. such Butterflies as generally have a White, Yellow, or other Field, in the midst of their upper Wings; the rest of other Colours.The most convincingly admiralish of these South American "Admirals" is the Dark Surinam Admiral. However, we now know this as the Banana Stem Borer Moth, Telchin licus, rather unrelated though it is still in the butterfly and moth family, Lepidoptera.
The butterfly named Dark Surinam Admiral by Petiver, eating a Costus.
Over de voortteeling en wonderbaerlyke veranderingen der Surinaemsche insecten
by Maria Sibylla Merian (Amsterdam, 1719)
From the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Other editions with colour changes
Petiver's definition does seem a little vague but supports the idea that the Admiral was named for the patches of white in the corner like an Admiral's Ensign flag. This description would surely also include the closely-related Painted Lady, Vanessa cardui. However, Petiver called the butterfly "Admiral" after a person, not "Ensign" after a flag.
I have not found any direct evidence that James Petiver knew Edward Russell or supported the Protestant monarchy. However, Petiver had friends in high places, including Leonard Plukenet, Royal Professor of Botany to William III and gardener to Queen Mary. Plukenet fell out with Petiver later, they were both rather prickly by all accounts. Another friend was Hans Sloane, physician to royalty, botanist, explorer, posthumous founder of the British Museum, profiteer from slavery and Ulster Protestant. Even if Petiver and Russell had not met they would have had mutual acquaintances.
Edward Russell, Admiral of the Fleet 1690-1696,
First Lord of the Admiralty of England 1694-1699, 1709-1710, 1714-1716.
First Lord of the Admiralty of England 1694-1699, 1709-1710, 1714-1716.
Russell was the Admiral of the Red a few years before and First Lord of the Admiralty of England at the time of publication of the name "The Admiral" for the butterfly. The current incumbent of the Admiral of the Red in 1699 was George Rooke. A long-time rival of Russell, Rooke never rose above that rank. Though Rooke also wore some fancy red clothes, so did everybody who could afford the expensive brightly-dyed cloth. I believe Russell is the more likely choice for "The Admiral" of the time.
Painted by Thomas Murray, sometime around 1692-3.
The map he is holding shows the south coast of England
and the French coast from Saint-Malo to Dieppe,
where all three had fought against the navy of Louis XIV.
where all three had fought against the navy of Louis XIV.
UK Government Art Collection, licensed under the Open Government Licence.
Petiver ran his Apothecary shop at Aldersgate Street in Central London from 1685. It would be certain that he would know of, if he had not actually met, the Admiral of the Red. Perhaps Petiver had seen these paintings of Admiral Edward Russell. While he was Admiral, Russell was "the most popular man in the kingdom, and the idol of the sailors", though the same writer stated that Russell later "fell unpitied" when charged with wrongdoing in office.
A Dutch Swallowtail, Papilio machaon.
Photo by Ge van 't Hoff on Wikicommons
The next in his list after "The Admiral" was a butterfly that Petiver attempted to christen "The Royal William". The butterfly Petiver saw was caught by his "ingenious Friend" Tilleman Bobart in the St James's Royal Gardens, close by the present site of Buckingham Palace. This regal name did not catch on and this very striking butterfly is now known as the Common Swallowtail. "The Royal William" was the new King, William III or William of Orange, who had taken the throne in 1689 along with Queen Mary. In 1696 two men-of-war called "The Royal William" and "The Royal Mary" were added to the Scottish fleet.
Edward Russell was one of the "Immortal Seven" who had sent a formal invitation to the Protestant William to invade Britain in 1688 and dethrone the Catholic King James II and VII. This was clearly a good career move for Russell as he was immediately re-employed by the Navy and rapidly promoted first to Admiral and then to Admiral of the Red. Clearly Petiver liked to flatter the new Protestant regime by naming superb butterflies.
In the Twelve New Designs of English Butterflies by Benjamin Wilkes in 1742 the name Swallow-tail was coined for the former Royal William and The Admiral was changed to The Admirable. The change is clearly deliberate as Wilkes would have seen the entries in Petiver's Centuries, which would have been essential reading for any 18th century butterfly fanatic. His art shows how obsessive, detailed and accurate Wilkes was. Very little is known of the excellent artist of these 12 plates and The English Moths and Butterflies with 120 colour plates, published in 1749. We cannot say if he was pro-Catholic, anti-Protestant, against foreign invasion or just thought that politics should have no part in entomology.
Unnamed butterfly on fennel plant.
De Europischen Insecten by Maria Sibylla Merian (Amsterdam, 1730)
From the Biodiversity Heritage Library.
There is a story that Admiral Edward Russell threw a party in Cadiz when forced to spend Christmas there in 1694. He is said to have filled an ornamental fountain with punch, enough to serve 6,000 party-goers. A later version of the story had the location as his Chippenham Hall pleasure-gardens in Cambridgeshire. I didn't include this in my article on punch because I discovered the origin of the story was not reliable. The first source was Francis Moore's Vox Stellarum (Voice of the Stars!), published in 1711. This astrological almanac is still being published as Old Moore's Almanack and could not be more unreliable and dishonest if they tried. The 1711 edition is not available online, I might follow it up at a library at some time in the future. Only so I can mock it accurately.
The earliest mention of the "Scarlet Admirable" that I can find was in William Lewin's The Papilios of Great Britain, published in 1795. He credits the name to "Harris", presumably Moses Harris. None of the available original unrevised books by Moses Harris appear to have this name mentioned, only "Admirable" on its own. Even the source given by the UK Butterflies website does not mention Scarlet or Red except in the description of the upper side of the wings as "Black, with red bars".
The first use of "Red" as a qualifier for the butterfly appears to be in The Natural History of British Insects Vol V by Edward Donovan, published in 1796. Donovan has it as the "Red Admirable".
The Red Admiral was also a variety of pear first mentioned by Stephen Switzer in his The Practical Fruit-Gardener of 1724 with a second edition in 1731. Not one of the main varieties discussed that bore fruit in July but one of several others "esteemed by many".
Returning to the present. This Red Admiral butterfly visited dozens of flowers on the kusagi while I was watching but also spent some time just relaxing and basking in the sun while sitting on the leaves of the tree. I have seen other butterflies on the kusagi flowers, as well as moths at night, but they have always flown before I could get my camera.
It was very windy and the next picture is the best of the underside of the wing.
