Tutt, J.W. — Melanism and Melanochroism in British Lepidoptera

Swan Sonnenschein London (ii), 66, text figs. . HB. 8vo, orig. cloth, gt. Endpapers browned. Slightly shaken. A few neat marginal pencil annotations. Good.. Scarce work on variation and aberration in British Lepidoptera. This pioneering study of colour variation in British butterflies and moths was one of the earliest attempts to explain melanism through Darwinian natural selection. Drawing on extensive observations, Tutt examined the occurrence and distribution of dark forms across British Lepidoptera, relating them to environmental conditions and proposing evolutionary explanations for their development. Published decades before the classic Peppered Moth experiments of Bernard Kettlewell's, the work is now recognised as a landmark in the history of entomology and evolutionary biology, laying the foundations for later studies of industrial melanism.Tutt was among the first entomologists to argue that natural selection could explain geographical patterns of colour variation. Although he also attributed importance to humidity and climate, his work laid the conceptual foundations for what later became known as industrial melanism..