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Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society 35(3), 1981, 249-251
OBITUARY
Hardin Blair Jones, 1914-1978
Hardin Blair Jones, who was Professor of Medical Physics, Professor of Physiology, and Assistant Director, Donner Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, held a keen avocational interest in butterflies and assembled a collection that has now been deposited with the California Academy of Sciences. He was born in Los Angeles, California, on 11 June 1914, to Maude Blair and Hardin Henry Jones, and died after a brief illness on 16 February 1978, in Berkeley, California. His educational and professional life centered around the University of California, where he received the A.B. at the Los Angeles campus in 1937, and the M.A. in 1939 and the Ph.D. in 1944 at the Berkeley campus. His dissertation was based on one of the early applications of radioactive tracers in metabolic studies. He was appointed Assistant Professor of Physiology at Berkeley in 1947 and advanced to Professor in 1954, with a concurrent appointment in the Division of Medical Physics of the Physics Department. Details of his contributions are discussed in an "In Memoriam" by Cornelius A. Tobias, Daniel I. Arnon, John H. Lawrence, and Paola S. Timiras of the University of California, Berkeley, published in September 1978, and from this is quoted:
"In his contacts with students Jones became aware of an increasing indulgence in hallucinatory drugs. The contradictions between scholarly pursuits and mental abuse by drugs troubled him and led to an exhaustive study of the drug question and the characteristics of users of sensual drugs worldwide. A course of instruction he developed on the use and abuse of drugs proved extremely popular. His publications and lectures on this subject culminated in a book, Sensual Drugs: Deprivation and Rehabilitation of the Mind, coauthored by his wife, Helen Cook Jones. Jones scientific bibliography totaled 140 publications."
In recent years, he was probably best known among laymen for his drug abuse research and for his stand against the use of marijuana.
Hardin Jones began his interest in Lepidoptera with the aid of a biology teacher at Glendale High School. He collected in the desert areas of southern California with his brother, Jordan L. Jones and an uncle, Leon Sanborne. In his college years he visited with Lloyd L. Martin and Dr. John A. Comstock at the Los Angeles Museum (now the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History). This is from information supplied by Mr. Martin (from a telephone conversation to PHA on 3 July 1980), who recalls his very fine, friendly personality. Jones also attended meetings of the Lorquin Entomological Society, but a "Directory of members of the Lorquin Entomological Society and a brief historical sketch of the organization, Los Angeles, California, November 1940, 8 pages" authored by John A. Comstock does not list him as a member (probably because he did not reside in the area, since he was a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley). In southern California his associates also included "Padre" Loye Miller, an ornithologist; J. D. Gunder; Albert and Amy Carter, the owners of a Butterfly Park in Roscoe (now called Sunland); and Dr. Clemence of Atascadero. Special collections were made in the Atascadero area; and also in the San Gabriel Mountains for forms of the California dog-face butterfly. With his move to the Bay Area to attend the University of California, Berkeley, and with subsequent university responsibilities, his collecting became inactive. The collections made in this period were donated to the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History between the mid-thirties through 1940, and it is recalled by his brother Jordan that portions were placed on public display at that time, probably with other museum material.
His enthusiasm for collecting was rekindled in the 1950's on business and vacation trips with his family. His daughter Carolyn Jones reports that he was rarely without his collapsible net and collecting jar that accompanied him on his travels throughout the world. Representative localities and dates at which some collections were made
250 Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society
HARDIN BLAIR JONES, 1914-1978
include: at Antigua, Guatemala, in March 1957; at Hardin Flats,1 Tuolumne County, California, in June 1957; at Bishop Creek, Inyo County, California, in July 1957; at Catalina Island, California, in September 1957; at Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, in December 1957 and 1959; at Lafayette, Contra Costa County, California, in March-May and August 1960; at Mitchell Canyon, Contra Costa County, California, in May 1960; at Swan River, Flathead County, Montana, in July 1960; at Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, in August 1960; at Glacier National Park, Montana, in July 1961 and 1962; and at Yosemite National Park, California, in June 1962; at Wells, Nevada, in June 1965; at Mazatlan, Mexico, in December 1970; and at Katmandu, Nepal, in March 1973.
1 We are aware of three spellings used for this name, and we follow the spelling that appears on the California State Automobile Association map "Yosemite National Park and part of the San Joaquin Valley" and the road signs in the area. Other orthographies are "Harden Flat" found on the U.S. Department of the Interior Geological Survey map of the Lake Eleanor quadrangle, California, 1946, and "Hardins Flat" discussed on page 127 in California Place Names, by Erwin G. Gudde, 1960, Second edition, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, pp. [i-xiii], 1-383.
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Portions of these collections were stored in 27 glass-topped drawers that formed part of a counter in his home study and in wall mounts, and they were available for study and for display to visitors. It was these more recently acquired collections that were donated to the Department of Entomology, California Academy of Sciences, by his widow, Helen Cook Jones, and through the interest of his daughter, Carolyn F. Jones. The donation consisted of 2587 specimens of which 2241 were collected in the United States and 346 are of exotic origin. Each specimen of this donation will carry a label that reads "HARDIN BLAIR JONES/ COLLECTION/ 1978-1980 Gift to/ CALIFORNIA ACADEMY/ OF SCIENCES."
Lepidoptera can be a rewarding avocation, providing an aesthetic and relaxing pleasure, as in this instance, to an otherwise very busy professional life, and yet lead to a contribution to the fund of entomological knowledge through an accumulation of properly documented specimens that will be utilized by others in research in future years.
Another avocational interest in Dr. Jones' life was Asian Art. This interest led to his appointment as an Asian Art Commissioner to the Avery Brundage Collection of the de Young Museum, San Francisco, during the years 1974-1977.
Hardin Blair Jones is survived by his wife, Helen Cook Jones of Berkeley, California, and 4 children—Carolyn Frances Jones of Menlo Park, Dr. Hardin Cook Jones of Los Altos, Nancy Jones Snowden of Saint Helena, and Mark Blair Jones of Oakland, five grandchildren, a sister Betty J. Westen of Walnut Creek, and a brother Jordan L. Jones of Huntington Park.
We are indebted to Mrs. Helen Cook Jones, Ms. Carolyn F. Jones, Mr. Jordan L. Jones, Ms. Gay C. Hunter, Dr. Charles L. Hogue, Mr. Lloyd L. Martin, and Mrs. Jacqueline Schonewald for information contained in this report.
Paul H. Arnaud, Jr. & Thomas W. Da vies, California Academy of Sciences, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California 94118.