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58
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Grey: Keeping records
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Vol.18: no.l
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added a new dimension to butterfly collecting. The modern collector has learned that he must use traps if he is to benefit fully from his efforts in the field. Although in this paper I have dealt with traps in an East African context only, there is little doubt that they could be used with equal success in other parts of the world to catch genera similar to, or closely related to, the ones listed above.
Acknowledgements
In conclusion, I should like to thank Dr. V. G. L. van Someren, Dr. Elliot Pinhey and Mr. John G. Williams for data regarding butterfly traps and baits, and Messrs. D. G. Sevastopulo, R. T. Evans and B. Barton-Eckett for their advice and help in the preparation of this paper.
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KEEPING RECORDS
by L. P. Grey Rt. 1, Box 216, Lincoln, Me., U. S. A.
The lepidopterist first of all is a psychopath of sorts; he needs must be individual and of course his ways of handling data will be diverse — witness the awesome ingenuity he displays in his other gadgetries and techniques of collecting. The nearest thing to agreement on a standard approach to data-keeping probably has been through the medium of personal diaries, at least with the older generation. This habit of chronology soon grows to be an indispensable crutch, a key to lifetime observations, especially functional when need arises to determine the particular housing project or cloverleaf under which lie buried the fields of youth and the butterfly haunts of yesteryear.
Ease and accessibility of recall are prime functions, but they are governed by what is to be recalled and for what purpose. Purpose indeed ranks first in any critique of method — the diary and the computer tape both are means to an end, whether the end be nostalgic or scientific.
The record chart forms recently shown by Heitzman in this section of the Journal (vol.17: 44-46; 1963) appear well suited to or adaptable to the needs of a large class of collectors, namely, those who do not happen to own a late-model computer but yet would like to get around some of the obvious defects of the diary-notebook system, aiming toward a better grouping of related data.
But alas, collectors being what they are, it is a safe wager that Heitzman's excellent layout will suffer many a change if it is "copied" at all by other students. Recognizing this fact of life, I shall describe my own scheme of filing data merely with the hope of provoking con-
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1964
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Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society
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59
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tinued discussions anent this important subject; privately, I realize my ideas are outstandingly superior but I also have a suspicion that no properly classified member of the "genus collector" is about to be copying either my methods or purposes — I had as soon think they would be rushing to wear my shoes which so nicely fit my individual pedal bumps and callosities.
My record file is limited to the named and unnamed color forms and blendings of the Nearctic fritillaries. It is maintained primarily as a tool to aid in visualizing distributions. "Localities", however, are treated merely as a convenient category around which to integrate other coequal data, viz: (1) of sympatrisms and allopatrisms; (2) of ecology — as defined by plant associations, altitudes, photographs when possible; (3) flight seasons, relative abundances and other noted biological individualities; (4) the usual "where, when, by whom", plus notes to help relocate collecting sites & material; (5) some description of local variation & population structure.
One of the functions of a record set-up surely ought to be to allow fairly quick extraction of listed data in many different combinations and permutations. Probably the speed with which this can be done, weighed against cost and amount of labor needed to prepare the file and keep it in order, give the true measure of utility. It would be nice to have answers pop up at the push of a button, but then, the main thing is to have quick access to particular cards from which desired combinations of information can be had, or at least to learn quickly how many of the desired facts are at hand.
I have seen no reasons to regret the decisions I made when adapting a system to 3 X 5 file cards. I gave serious consideration to many ways of handling, including mechanical adjuncts such as, e. g.: notching the cards to allow various automatic collations when dropped onto spaced rods — these and other grandiose ideas were discarded in favor of manual sorting. This meant that special care must be given to layout and organization since I expected to build up a fairly large body of assorted information which would be valuable only in proportion as it could be collated and cross-compared. It appeared that this could be done by exploiting two simple ideas, namely (1) that alphabetically arranged index tabs for various categories are easy to prepare and easy to discriminate when a drawer is opened, and (2) that a bunch of cards of this size is easy to hold and to RIFFLE so that the CORNERS pass in review for quick sighting.
I recognize thirteen "species" in the group I study; the first categorical separation therefore is by "species", or rather by "drawers" since I have enough records in most of these categories to require a separate
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60
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Vol. 18: no.l
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drawer or drawers for each, all of which are at arm's reach in a specially constructed desk. The next category, within drawers, is "States and Provinces", instantly selective from alphabetically ordered tabs. A subcategory of "Counties" is maintained at present merely by alphabetical arrangement within each of the "species-States" slots, subject to promotion whenever I get enough material, or spare time to make the tabs. As it stands, then, it takes only a few seconds to pull out whatever records may be available of particular species from any county in North America. But this is only a first step; the card layouts then permit reasonably quick tabulations, comparisons and other developments of the data.
A description of the format follows, but a prime qualification must not be omitted: I should define my "units" to which separate cards are assigned. These are: SERIES OF A PARTICULAR SPECIES TAKEN BY AN INDIVIDUAL COLLECTOR OR COLLECTORS IN A SPOT LOCALITY ON A SINGLE DATE. "Localities" are closely restricted; correspondents are asked to assign separate field numbers when they move on a mile or two or revisit places at later dates.
When the cards are typed, places of honor are given to data adjudged most often consulted or most likely to require tabulation; these are spotted in the four CORNERS, viz.:
Upper Left: SPECIES. And also, for convenience, FIELD NUMBERS are placed here, a line or two below, plus CROSS REFERENCES where available. Example: atlantis
AHM 63 AO
see also AHM 63 BX - RHP 61 AR Incidentally, it might be a cause for rejoicing if collectors would standardize on this formula of "initials of collector — year — AA through AZ, BA through BZ, etc.", a concise and inexhaustable code providing every spot locality batch with its own unique tag.
Upper Right: STATE OR PROVINCE. Immediately below this, the COUNTY, and just below this usually a TOPOGRAPHICAL CATCH-PHRASE. Like this:
Wyoming
Albany Co.
S. E. Laramie Divide,
Dale Creek-Cache
la Poudre drainage
The latter reference quite often is the most importantly useful one on
the card; some regional research should be put into selecting and
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Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society
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61
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phrasing it. Notation of the nearest mountain range or other principal topographic feature usually is inadequate unless restricted; the form of restriction should be the one most likely to aid in rationalizing sub-speciation in terms of the lay of the land. Take for example the cited instance: the "highlands and Sonoran intervales of southeastern Wyoming and adjacent parts of Colorado are fairly complex, especially so to a stranger; it then appears safer to go by drainage lines which in this case probably are equally or better calculated to integrate observed variation and which have a special virtue of being easy to check definitively whereas the upland contours are rather bewildering to follow on ordinarily available maps. Political units like "Albany County" are extremely valuable in preliminary delimitations but then the orientation properly must be to ecogeography, to have, say, the "Medicine Bow East Slope — Little Laramie River drainage" records grouped so that they comprise units within the "Albany County" assortments.
Lower Left: DEPOSITION. The name of museum or individual owner of recorded material is placed here for my own convenience, since I often like to know where certain series may be located. But this "quick-sight" space could as well be given to some other phase of data, dependent on individual needs and desired utility; the same flexibility could be given to the next and final "cornering".
Lower Right: NUMBER OF EACH SEX. Also, a line above or nearby: CONDITION, whether fresh, worn or ragged, and RATIO OF SILVER if the record is of a population in which that character is variable.
But these "cornerings" merely frame the subject; major data fill the centers of the cards, often running over to the reverse sides, in this order: (1) a LOCALITY REFERENCE is given in some terms which will insure limitation to the proper U. S. G. S. quadrangle map and which will further aid precise or within-a-mile-or-so spotting (often, reference to available National Forest maps, air navigation charts, etc., is inserted — capitalized for quick sighting — since these can be exhumed quickly and usually will be sufficient to give the desired perspective); (2) all in one running statement, the ALTITUDE, DATE AND COLLECTOR are cited (the latter by initials merely if the same person owns the material and is named in the lower left corner); (3) next, separated by a line, a LIST OF CONGENERS, that is, the number and identity of all other speyerians taken at this same place; this facilitates cross-reference to the other cards of the same catch and at the same time nails down the recorded sympatrisms of particular localities; (4) then, the ECOLOGICAL NOTES, carefully boiled down to essentials (if you can close your eyes and visualize the place, your choice of words
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62
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Vol.18: no.l
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was right; (5) finally, a DESCRIPTION OF VARIATION which again need not be wordy to stimulate recall.
A representative fill-in of the above might look like this:
Albany Co. Laramie Divide, N. E. No. Laramie-No. Platte drainage Along Friend Creek in a large dry meadow just West of
Laramie Peak (MED. BOW N. F.), 7800 ft., 20.vii.63,
AHM. On thistles (ECOLOGY: see atlantis file).
Sympatric: 1 m egleis; 3 m, 5 f atlantis unsilvered; 11
f coronis; 3 f edivardsii; 14 m, 12 f zerene.
These mormonia silvered, the female very green-disk,
the males greenish to very red like Black Hills norm, a
stunning contrast. Perhaps a few more trivia should be noted. (1) Having given considerable attention to ecology, I have been lead to preserve rather lengthy descriptions, photographs, references to correspondence, etc., which would be time-consuming or impossible to duplicate for the separate files of species taken in single places. These, then, are tied together by cross-references, as in the above example. On each card, however, the intention is to make them practically self-sustaining for generalities of faunal zone and vegetation. Probably the available ecological notes will be organized in a separate file eventually, but as it stands it is no great chore to pull things together when needs arise. (2) A date of filing is rubber-stamped vertically across the left-hand end of the cards, a date which is kept the same for and unique to all cards of particular loans and shipments; perhaps this is an unnecessary refinement but it does make possible eventual reassembly of all data of particular shipments if it ever should be required. (3) in addition to mentioned recordings other facts often are added as occasions seem to merit; for example, the entire file originally was confined to personally inspected series, but the circumstances which made that necessary have changed greatly in recent years; there are now many keen students of these butterflies whose identifications can be accepted without question. In such cases the cards are marked "not seen; data from Richard Roe in lift. 6.ix.61".
As a usual thing, regardless of the problem at hand the records available are not likely to swamp one, once they are located. And if the research is extensive it can be broken down geographically and worked piecemeal. The broad principles of this sort of record-keeping do not require elaborate means for collating data. It is true that a large number of cards may have to be conned over when making desired factual syntheses, but the geographically organized arrangement usually per-
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1964
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Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society
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63
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mits very speedy access to exactly those cards which will be needed. I anticipate that everybody who dabbles in biogeography will agree that the procuring and organizing of good maps is more of a problem than the one of organizing records. It is to be hoped that some of the brethren who have ideas on this latter subject of gathering, learning and organizing data of ecogeography will speak up!
More and more, my file of Speyeria grows to command the time and interest I once gave to a "collection"; the latter now serves the frankly subsidiary purpose of providing an occasional jog to memory of local variation. Time is becoming too precious to waste on the mechanics of case-building and spreading; also, my wife intimates that one roomful is enough. But file cards are inexpensive and some of the available drawers still are empty. Still and all, how nice it would be, as W. D. Field and I so often have wistfully pondered, if some genius would engineer a transparent-envelope system of some kind, so that all of the series could be put right in the drawers with the cards — thousands of them in space where at most a few dozen pinned specimens could be housed.
Until the happy day comes when this urgent problem is solved, of filing Lepidoptera in quantity in some way so that they can be (1) quickly and inexpensively prepared, (2) stored in small space, adaptable to a filing cabinet system, (3) available for close inspection, fully visible, (4) exposed to repeated handling without damage, and (5) easily withdrawn for microscopic examination, I suppose we still must abide by the curatorial traditions handed down from the Victorians. But I will say that of the two things, I almost prefer a well-organized file, if the choice has to be between it and pinned series of the all-too-usual kind, which are alone in the world except for pin labels telling the place, day, and COLLECTOR. The latter's name usually is set in fairly large type and if he is still living there is a chance that a few man-hours of research and correspondence might yield the desired graphic data of ecogeography and sympatrisms. But then, the same amount of effort probably would bring in better and larger data from contemporary correspondents. Still, the standards are visibly improving, and the main troubles lie with existing series which are relics from days when "specimens" were thought to be the goal and end of collecting. The search now has passed on to the pursuit of elusive truths concerning the age-old evolutionary struggle, for hints which now and again may be interpreted from the data of landscapes and populations. This sort of "collecting" challenges today's students to improve their techniques of record-keeping and to pioneer new and more efficient ways of handling material.
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