The New Library at Herculanaeum Gate Press

Lately discovered writers of the ancient world

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The New Library

at Herculanaeum Gate

Revisiting the Mareotis:
The 1909 Fieldbook of
Alexei Sergeyevich Lermontov

From the Introduction

Alexei Sergeyevich Lermontov (1885-1922) first glimpsed the Actaeus (Raj. herzeni) from his bedroom window overlooking the lake pavilion at the family estate at Neskutchny in 1901 and was immediately captivated by the butterfly's princely demeanor, dreamlike beauty and ease with which it could blend unnoticed into the surrounding gardens. His later discovery of the Actaeus' ability to cross back and forth between two Kingdoms of living things laid the theoretical foundation for the modern science of Evolutionary Biology which he introduced in his first volume of the magisterial Butterflies of All the Russias.