An old gag tells of a counterfeiter who became so puffed with success that he began putting his own picture on the currency he printed. Husky, 26-year-old Elphinstone Forest Gilmour was not a counterfeiter but a student of entomology whose interest in his subject earned him the right to prowl at will among the 13 million beetles in South Kensington's Natural History Museum. Gilmour joined the Royal Entomological Society, wrote for the society's journal a knowing discourse on a black and yellow beetle called Tmesisternus laterimaculatus. He boasted that the beetle was "unique in my own collection."
This led to the discovery...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
