George F. Leigh of Durban, a Fellow of the (British) Entomological Society, was one of the first professional insect collectors in South Africa, during the first decade of the twentieth century. Although his methods were rather crude and he did not contribute much to knowledge of the life histories of insects, he collected many specimens, most of which were sold to European institutions. The Transvaal Museum in Pretoria bought collections of insects of various orders from him in 1902 and during 1905-1906. The museum staff must have been satisfied with the specimens, for Mr C.J. Swierstra*, who was in charge of the insect collection, asked Leigh to continue collecting for the museum, but to give more attention to the Orthoptera, Neuroptera, Diptera, and Hemiptera. After collecting for almost a whole year Leigh provided the museum with a fairly representative collection from the neighbourhood of Durban in 1907.
Meanwhile Leigh had been
conducting research on a few species of butterflies, leading to the publication
of two papers:. "Synepigonic series of Papilio eenea (1902) and Hypolimnas misippus (1904), together
with observations on the life history of the former." (Ecological Entomology , 1904) and "Heredity in six families of Papilio
dardanus, Brown, Subspecies cenea, Stoll., bred at Durban" (with Edward B.
Poulton*; Ecological Entomology, 1909).
