Brigadier William Harry Evans (born 22 July 1876 in

Shillong Shillong (, ) is a hill station and the capital of Meghalaya, a Indian state, state in northeastern India. It is the headquarters of the East Khasi Hills district. Shillong is the list of most populous cities in India, 330th most populous city ...

– died 13 November 1956, Church Whitfield ) was a

lepidopterist Lepidopterology ()) is a branch of entomology concerning the scientific study of moths and the two superfamilies of butterflies. Someone who studies in this field is a lepidopterist or, archaically, an aurelian. Origins Post-Renaissance, the r ...

and

British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...

officer who served in

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. He documented the

butterfly Butterflies are winged insects from the lepidopteran superfamily Papilionoidea, characterized by large, often brightly coloured wings that often fold together when at rest, and a conspicuous, fluttering flight. The oldest butterfly fossi ...

fauna of

Burma Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and ha ...

and

Ceylon Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

in a series of articles in the ''Journal of the

Bombay Natural History Society The Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), founded on 15 September 1883, is one of the largest non-governmental organisations in India engaged in conservation and biodiversity research. It supports many research efforts through grants and publ ...

''. Brigadier Evans was especially interested in the

taxonomy image:Hierarchical clustering diagram.png, 280px, Generalized scheme of taxonomy Taxonomy is a practice and science concerned with classification or categorization. Typically, there are two parts to it: the development of an underlying scheme o ...

and systematics of the butterfly families

Lycaenidae Lycaenidae is the second-largest family (biology), family of butterflies (behind Nymphalidae, brush-footed butterflies), with over 6,000 species worldwide, whose members are also called gossamer-winged butterflies. They constitute about 30% of ...

and

Hesperiidae Skippers are a group of butterflies placed in the family Hesperiidae within the order Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies). They were previously placed in a separate superfamily, Hesperioidea, but have since been placed in the superfamily Papilion ...

an example being his ''A revision of the

Arhopala ''Arhopala'' is a very large genus of gossamer-winged butterflies (Lycaenidae). They are the type genus of the tribe Arhopalini. In the relatively wide circumscription used here, it contains over 200 species collectively known as oakblues. They o ...

group of Oriental Lycaenidae (Lepidoptera: Rhopalocera)'' ''Bull. British Mus. (Nat. Hist.)'', Ent., vol. 5: pp. 85–141 (1957).

Life and work

Evans was the third son of Sir Horace Moule Evans and Elizabeth Anne, daughter of Surgeon General J. T. Tressider. His mother kindled an interest in nature and, when he was sent to

King's School, Canterbury The King's School is a public school in Canterbury, Kent, England. It is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference and the Eton Group. It is Britain's oldest public school and is considered to be the oldest continuously op ...

, he was already interested in

butterflies Butterflies are winged insects from the lepidopteran superfamily Papilionoidea, characterized by large, often brightly coloured wings that often fold together when at rest, and a conspicuous, fluttering flight. The oldest butterfly fossi ...

and

moth Moths are a group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not Butterfly, butterflies. They were previously classified as suborder Heterocera, but the group is Paraphyly, paraphyletic with respect to butterflies (s ...

s. He joined the army at the age of 18 and was posted with the Royal Engineers. In 1898 he began collecting butterflies in

Chitral Chitral () is a city situated on the Kunar River, Chitral River in northern area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. It serves as the capital of the Lower Chitral District, and was previously the capital of Chitral District, and before ...

. He was sent on duty with the Somaliland Expedition (1902–04), and he injured his knee. He served in France from 1914 to 1918 and was awarded the D.S.O. and a brevet. Exposure to poison gas, however, caused him permanent chest problems. He returned to India in 1919 with his final post in the Western Command at Quetta as a chief engineer. He retired in 1931 and travelled to London via Australia. His home was close to the Natural History Museum and he continued to work on Military service and was attached with the Non-Intervention Committee during the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...

and later took up work as an

Air Raid Warden Air Raid Precautions (ARP) refers to a number of organisations and guidelines in the United Kingdom dedicated to the protection of civilians from the danger of air raids. Government consideration for air raid precautions increased in the 1920s a ...

. He was at a window in the

Natural History Museum A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history scientific collection, collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, Fungus, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleo ...

, facing South onto Cromwell Road when a German

V1 flying bomb The V-1 flying bomb ( "Vengeance Weapon 1") was an early cruise missile. Its official Reich Aviation Ministry () name was Fieseler Fi 103 and its suggestive name was ( hellhound). It was also known to the Allies as the buzz bomb or doodlebug ...

burst on the road away. He was injured and his hearing was permanently impaired. His wife lived in Bournemouth during the air raids (and died there in 1945). Evans, however, stayed in London to complete his ''Revision of the Hesperiidae of the world'', as he stated "before he died". Evans collected butterflies throughout his career in India and was very knowledgeable on distribution patterns. His favourite collection areas included

Kodaikanal Kodaikanal () (English: ) is a municipality and hill station in Dindigul district in the state of Tamil Nadu, India. It is situated at an altitude of in the Palani hills of the Western Ghats. Kodaikanal was established in 1845 to serve as a r ...

Jabalpur Jabalpur, formerly Jubbulpore, is a city situated on the banks of Narmada River in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India. It is the 3rd-largest urban agglomeration of the state and the 38th-largest of the country. Jabalpur is the administrative h ...

Simla Shimla, also known as Simla (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Himachal Pradesh, the official name until 1972), is the capital and the largest city of the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. In 1864, Shimla was declared the summe ...

Murree Murree () is a mountain resort city in the northernmost region of the Punjab, Pakistan, Punjab province of Pakistan. Lying in the Galyat region of the Pir Panjal Range under the western Himalayas, it forms the outskirts of the Islamabad–Rawal ...

Darjeeling Darjeeling (, , ) is a city in the northernmost region of the States and union territories of India, Indian state of West Bengal. Located in the Eastern Himalayas, it has an average elevation of . To the west of Darjeeling lies the Koshi Pr ...

and

Baluchistan Balochistan ( ; , ), also spelled as Baluchistan or Baluchestan, is a historical region in West and South Asia, located in the Iranian plateau's far southeast and bordering the Indian Plate and the Arabian Sea coastline. This arid region of de ...

. He travelled to Australia to collect the endemic subfamily

Trapezitinae Trapezitinae is a subfamily of the Hesperiidae ("skippers") family of butterflies. They are found only in New Guinea and Australia. The subfamily contains about 60 species in 20 genus, genera. Genera * ''Anisynta'' Lower, 1911 * ''Atkinsia domin ...

. From 1923 he published keys to the identification of Indian butterflies in the ''

Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society The ''Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society'' (also ''JBNHS'') is a natural history journal published several times a year by the Bombay Natural History Society. First published in January 1886, and published with only a few interruption ...

''. Evans examined over half a million specimens of

in the museum. Evans was influenced by the works of

Bernhard Rensch Bernhard Rensch (21 January 1900 – 4 April 1990) was a German evolutionary biologist and ornithologist who did field work in Indonesia and India. Starting his scientific career with pro- Lamarckian views, he shifted to selectionism and became ...

Ernst Mayr Ernst Walter Mayr ( ; ; 5 July 1904 – 3 February 2005) was a German-American evolutionary biologist. He was also a renowned Taxonomy (biology), taxonomist, tropical explorer, ornithologist, Philosophy of biology, philosopher of biology, and ...

and

Thomas Huxley Thomas Henry Huxley (4 May 1825 – 29 June 1895) was an English biologist and anthropologist who specialized in comparative anatomy. He has become known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. The stor ...

, but he was not comfortable with the ideas of

phylogenetic classification Phylogenetic nomenclature is a method of nomenclature for taxa in biology that uses phylogenetic definitions for taxon names as explained below. This contrasts with the traditional method, by which taxon names are defined by a ''type'', which can ...

Publications

* 1937. ''A Catalogue of the African Hesperiidae''. British Museum (Natural History), London. * 1949. ''A Catalogue of the Hesperiidae From Europe, Asia, and Australia in the British Museum (Natural History)''. * 1951. ''A Catalogue of the American Hesperiidae Indicating the Classification and Nomenclature Adopted in the British Museum (Natural History)''. Part I. Pyrrhophyginae. British Museum, London. * 1952. ''A Catalogue of the American Hesperiidae Indicating the Classification and Nomenclature Adopted in the British Museum (Natural History)''. Part II. Pyrginae. Section I. British Museum, London. * 1953. ''A Catalogue of the American Hesperiidae Indicating the Classification and Nomenclature Adopted in the British Museum (Natural History)''. Part III. Pyrginae. Section II. British Museum, London. * 1955. ''A Catalogue of the American Hesperiidae Indicating the Classification and Nomenclature Adopted in the British Museum (Natural History)''. Part IV. Hesperiinae and Megathyminae. British Museum, London. * 1932. ''The Identification of Indian Butterflies''.

References

* H. D. P. 1957: vans, W. H.''Entomologist'' 90, 24. * Remington, C. L. 1956: vans, W. H.''Lepidopt. News'' 10, 101. * Riley, N. D. & Remington, C. L. 1956: vans, W. H.''Lepidopt. News'' 10, 193–199, Portrait
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* Sachtleben, H. 1957: vans, W. H.''Beitr. Ent.'' 7, 200–201. {{DEFAULTSORT:Evans, William Henery British entomologists 1876 births 1956 deaths Royal Engineers officers British Army personnel of World War I Companions of the Order of the Star of India Companions of the Order of the Indian Empire Companions of the Distinguished Service Order People educated at The King's School, Canterbury British lepidopterists 20th-century British zoologists Civil Defence Service personnel British people in colonial India Zoologists from British India