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Description: | The biggest collection of insects to arrive in the Hunterian Museum (Zoology) was King's bequest. He was such a prolific collector that much of his material is a resource yet to be fully realised. Specimens date from c.1877 to about 1930. King collected mainly in Scotland but had a particular interest in Ireland and visited there several times. He also visited localities in England, mainly in the New Forest and in the southwest as far as Cornwall.
King taught at the Glasgow School of Art where he was also librarian. His summer holidays of up to two months were spent in one area, dividing time between collecting, pinning and setting insects. From the field notebooks that cover some of these trips it is evident that generally he did not travel far, usually collecting on foot within just a few miles of each locus.
He appears to have been gregarious by nature, visiting local acquaintances and meeting other entomologists on their home ground. In the early years he went on family holidays in Scotland. One of the interesting insects from this period is the first British record of the longhorn beetle 'Judolia sexmaculata' under the card of which is written "The first British spm collected by my mother, 1877". In 1875 he had been presented with the book by Wilkinson "British Tortrices" (1859) as a prize for ‘Anatomical Notes' by the Haldane Academy and the Glasgow School of Art. Presumably his interest in entomology developed in parallel with his career in art. Later he was to teach a short course on agricultural entomology at the local technical college.
King collected on a scale which is quite unusual. Apparently common and widespread species were collected in large numbers in each place. This is an excellent way of finding the rare and unusual kinds ‘hidden' among superficially similar ones. In this way King was responsible for discovering many species new to Britain. Nothing was too obscure to attract his interest, including the tiniest of barklice and thousands of parasitic Hymenoptera. One of his obituarists recounted how impressed King's contemporaries were with his ability to set such small insects so perfectly.
In some groups he published details of discoveries himself, such as over 50 short notes in the Entomologists Monthly Magazine. In other insect orders he provided raw material for others to work on. A considerable quantity of material collected by him can be found in other museums such as Edinburgh (National Museums of Scotland), London (the Natural History Museum) and Dublin (National Museum of Ireland). However, the great bulk of his collection is in Glasgow. | Subjects: | British insects James Joseph Francis Xavier King | Source: | Hunterian Museum | Address: | University of Glasgow,
University Avenue,
G12 8QQ | Creator: | Geoff Hancock | Contributor: | J.J.F.X. King | Identifier: | C-0044 |
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