Down and out in Africa

"Butterflies of the Afrotropical Region" is a ridiculously huge work of almost 600 pages, featuring photos of...well, butterflies from sub-Saharan Africa. When I looked through the book, I got a really weird feeling. I imagined that I had seen the butterflies before somewhere. And I don't mean the species, I mean the actual specimens! Had I finally lost it after all these years, slowly descending into barking insanity? Or was something else going on...?

Luckily (for me), "something else" turned out to be the correct option. The butterflies in this mammoth work are specimens from the collection of the British Museum. I happen to have another book featuring photos of specimens from the very same collection, "Butterflies of the world" by H.L. Lewis. Obviously, I'm not going crazy. What Bernard d'Abrera thinks he's up to, is something else again...

I'm sure libraries would want to have this book, and the other books in the series, in their reference sections. It could also be a collectors' item. However, I would never give $ 600 for a book stashed with pinned butterflies made in Britain. Frankly, can you imagine anything more boring?