In the spring of 1970, a 71-year-old
Vladimir Nabokov gave chase to a rare, orange butterfly on the slopes of Mount
Etna, sweating and panting, his lips “white rimmed with thirst and excitement.”
Tucking the specimen into the inside pocket of his jacket, he told a New
York Times reporter, “It is a feeling I usually get at my writing desk.”
Nabokov began collecting butterflies as a child in Russia, and when he came to
the United States he spent his first years working in museums and publishing a
dozen papers on lepidoptery, the study of butterflies and moths. He liked to be
photographed with his huge gauzy …read more
Source: The New Republic
