james william tutt (26 april 1858–10 january 1911) was an english schoolteacher and entomologist. he was a founding editor of the journal "entomologists' record" from 1890 and published a landmark series on the "british lepidoptera" in which he described numerous species of moths and was among the first to notice industrial melanism in the pepper moth "biston betularia" and was among the first to provide a clear explanation of their increasing frequency based on the role of crypsis, natural selection by predators, and the effect of changed environmental conditions brought on by industrialism.