A rich seam of hard drive detritus uncovered recently: a whole folder full of insect, spider and butterfly images scanned in the mid 1990s (somewhat haphazardly in a few cases, although not by me) from vintage magazines. Some of the illustrations are obviously from National Geographic; possibly all of them are. Many of them are signed by Hashime Murayama, who did indeed work for National Geographic between 1921 and 1941. Unfortunately he was arrested several times as an enemy alien during WWII, although like 99% of Japanese-Americans he was completely innocent of any crime. He died in 1954.
First of all, some spiders. I really enjoy the jolly, gung-ho captions, but then I’m quite fond of spiders. I suspect for some people calling a befanged skitterer on too many legs an “athlete” is not enough to affect any form of rapprochement.
Next time: moths.
Fabrics of many designs come from these assorted spinners’ looms.
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