The Butterfly Vivarium; or Insect Home. by HUMPHREYS, Henry Noel - 1858: Being an Account of a New Method of Observing the Curious Metamorphoses of Some of the Most Beautiful of our Native Insects. Comprising Also, a Popular Description of the Habits and Instincts of Many of the Insects of the Various Classes Referred to; with

London: William Lay,, 1858. First edition, illustrating a variety of British native butterflies, moths, caterpillars, and other insects in attractively hand-coloured plates. A skilled artist trained in Brussels, Humphreys became interested in natural history after a tour of Italy. This is one of his most popular books on insects, focusing especially on how to collect them and raise them in a vivarium. Upon his return from Italy, Humphreys settled in London as a neighbour of a relative, the landscape architect and prolific author J. C. Loudon. He wrote for a series of garden periodicals, including Loudon's Gardener's Magazine. He is best remembered for illustrating John Obadiah Westwood's British Butterflies and their Transformations (1841) and British Moths and their Transformations (1845). Octavo. Original purple cloth, rebacked with original spine laid down, spine and covers lettered and decorated in gilt and blind with pictorial designs, brown coated endpapers printed with advertisements, all edges gilt. With wood-engraved frontispiece and 7 similar plates, all with contemporary hand-colouring and tissue guards. Latin prize bookplate on front pastedown presenting the book to Patritio Lynch, student at St Stanislaus College, in the year of publication. Binding a little rubbed, spine faded, corners bumped, front inner hinge split but firm, sporadic foxing to contents, otherwise clean. A very good copy.