in cases in a tradition dating back 200 years, but as time went on views changed and collecting became taboo. So Sir David banished his collection to the loft, but remained anguished about what to do with it. "I had collected a great number," he said, "and when it became apparent that this was a terrible thing to have done, I put them in the loft. And I thought, what do I do with these ..they were marvellous things! I had ornithopterans [birdwings]." He said: "This was a great guilt in my life." Twenty years ago, however, his guilt was eased. Sir David said: "I happened to meet an entomologist from Cambridge University, and looking deep into the glass of wine, I said I've got this problem... "And he said, I will solve your problem. I will save them for science and they will be used for science. And I gave him the whole lot, and with his students from the entomological department, they mounted them properly, and he put them to good use. I don't necessarily know that they went into any important collection, but they went into academia. They went into scholarship." Sir David, president of the charity Butterfly Conservation, spoke to The Independent about his collecting earlier this week after launching The Big Butterfly Count, the annual survey of the insects, whose British populations are likely to have been very hard hit this year by the excessively rainy weather. "In my early expeditions I was collecting animals