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The Lepidopterists' News
Volume 10 1956 Number 5
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS TO THE THIRD PACIFIC SLOPE MEETING OF THE LEPIDOPTERISTS' SOCIETY
Mr. Chairman, members, and guests of the Lepidopterists' Society— I am very grateful for the honour you have given me by electing me president of our Society for 1956. As your president this year, I send rather than bring my greetings. It is a very real disappointment to me that I am not able to attend the Third Pacific Slope meeting and participate in the symposium that is to be the main feature of your program, and in the discussions on the contributed papers. Unfortunately, this year my field work and many duties in connection with the forthcoming Tenth International Congress of Entomology, that will be held later this month in Montreal, Quebec, have made it impossible for me to attend your meeting. However, I offer some comments for thought and discussion in the few pages that follow.
The theme of your symposium "the various methods of approach to taxonomic solutions" is a complex one, and one that continually confronts all workers in systematics. The approaches to the solution of problems on species recognition are many, and often complex in closely allied species. The usual and basic method for distinguishing species is by external or internal anatomy (or morphology, if you wish). Comparative anatomy may be regarded as the basic or primary tool for research in taxonomy. As such it might appropriately be considered as the plough to turn the fundamental furrow of taxonomic investigation. However, this approach often has its limitations, especially in the investigation of closely allied or sibling species. For example, the elucidation of the biological status of such "well known" species as the papilios or nymphalids of the Cordilleran or Rocky Mountain System, requires much more refined implements. I firmly believe that even though the "plough" is the foundation for basic taxonomic investigation, several keen, small, scalpels are required to distinguish the numerous cryptic taxonomic entities that confront us in almost all insect groups. The most important of these fine implements is, I believe, the investigation and observation of the behaviour, or life history in detail, of populations in their natural environment, particularly those populations in different ecological niches. It is, of course, easier to investigate obviously different macro environments than it is to study the obscure differences prevailing in micro environments. However, I believe, that any difference in behaviour is significant at the specific or sub-specific level, and that ecological correlation, if definable, is helpful but subordinate. It is impossible to visualize two ecologically different insect populations that do not also exhibit differences in behaviour. Therefore, de-
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tailed field observations often provide the best approach to practical or theoretical insect taxonomy.
An explanation of the multitude of behaviouristic and morphological complexities that we observe is sometimes sought through studies of inheritance, chromosome morphology, gene flow, gene constellations, and gene frequency within populations. These important and fundamental branches of biology, genetics, and cytology, help to explain some of the differences we see, as well as some we don't see, but there is doubt in my mind that even these fine scalpels can reveal all differences in the behaviour of organisms.
Another method of analyzing our observations is by utilizing statistics. This method, like all the others, appears to have its limitations, not through the fault of the science of mathematics, but through the frequent lack of data, and through the biological phenomenon of the persistence of rradierts in biological entities, which, by the process of organic and inorganic evolution, are never static.
Still other aids to taxonomy may be found in the sciences of chemistry, physiology, geology, and meteorology. All of these together would no doubt afford the best method for scientific analysis of many taxonomic problems. However, such a concentrated approach using all known disciplines and techniques is impractical as a rule. Let us go back to behaviour. This is something that every individual worker can observe. Differences in the life histories and behaviour of insect populations in different regions may be found, regardless of the proximity of those regions.
During the last few years, I have been studying the minute Lepidoptera that mine the leaves of plants. Here is a field of endeavour that illustrates the importance and ease of recognition of behaviour differences. Here also is a field where each of us can make an important scientific contribution in our own back yard or nearby woodlot. The vast field of taxonomy of the leaf miners is almost untouched in the Cordilleran Region. New species are everywhere awaiting discovery. The moths are usually beautiful little jewels of biological splendor. They require little space to house as a collection and afford an opportunity for taxonomic investigation at a high level in the light of modern systematics. They also challenge one's ingenuity and ability as a technician in lepidopterology. Special problems are encountered in pinning and spreading some of them whose wing expanse is just over 2 mm.
This hastily prepared address was written during a rainy day on the north shore of Lake Erie, in the Carolinian Zone, where I am at present collecting lepidopterous leaf-miners and other moths, making observations on their behaviour and the kinds of mines they construct. A substantial proportion of the species reared appear to be new to science.
Before closing I should like to extend an invitation to all of you to attend the forthcoming International Congress of Entomology. There, 1 hope you may learn, among other things, something of the taxonomy and distribution of the various species of butterflies that inhabit the land of the midnight sun.
T. N. Freeman