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will remain forever a tribute to this intelligent, generous, wonderfully kind, and gentle man.
Bibliography
Gordon was most reluctant to publish or become involved with it. He felt that he was not well enough trained technically and that he could contribute more by concentrating on his field work. A list of publications follows:
1. 1962. Notes on Eurystrymon Ontario Ontario and Satyrium caryaevorus (Lycaeni-dae). J. Lepid. Soc. 16:195-196.
2. 1969. A new subspecies of Pyrrhopyge creon (Hesperiidae) from Panama. J. Lepid. Soc. 23:127-130 (with S. S. Nicolay).
3. 1981. Illustrations and descriptions of some species of Pyrrhopyginae from Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia (Hesperiidae). J. Res. Lepid. 19:230-239 (with S. S. Nicolay).
4. 1981. Wind dispersal of Panamanian hairstreak butterflies (Lepidoptera: Lycaeni-dae) and its evolutionary significance. Biotropica 13:308-315 (with R. K. Robbins).
5. In press. Catalog of the Nymphalinae (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) of Panama. In Quintero D., and A. Aiello (eds.), Insects of Panama and Mesoamerica: Selected studies. Oxford Univ. Press, London (with Gerardo Lamas).
S. S. Nicolay, 1500 Wakefield Drive, Virginia Beach, Virginia 23455-4529.
Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society 43(4), 1989, 343-345
I Remember Gordon
I remember a bus ride in 1976 bound from San Jose, Costa Rica, to Panama to meet a man that several people had told me knew a lot about butterflies. Perhaps he could help me identify the Costa Rican butterflies I had been working on was how my thoughts ran at the time. Feeling as one can only feel after 28 hours on a bus, beyond weariness, I eventually found myself in front of one of the Canal Zone houses, rapped on a door, and found the face of Gordon B. Small smiling down the stairs at me.
I remember being filled with wonder when walking into his apartment for the first time. Picture, if you will, a room furnished on one end with two chairs, a sofa with a long, low table between, and two lamps. Only two other things were in that room, both of which were of great importance to Gordon: long rows of insect cabinets and boxes filled to capacity with what I have come to know as the finest collection of Central American butterflies ever made, and a baby grand piano. The chair, lamps, and table were obviously there to make looking at butterflies easier; the piano had its own seat and lamp.
I remember that within a matter of hours Gordon and his collection profoundly changed my life. Here was someone who knew, absolutely, the Central American butterfly fauna. Over the course of a week he taught me not only the names of the species, but where and how they flew, the problems with the revisions done by "experts," and gave me snippets of wisdom I still am puzzling over today. Gordon's initial gift to me was that he showed an unflagging interest in my meager observations on butterflies, and encouraged me to keep working on this lunatic idea I had of doing a treatment of the Costa Rican butterfly fauna. No matter that he was clearly the consummate master, and I the complete novice.
I remember Gordon playing the piano. His sense of ordering complex patterns found affinity within the music of J. S. Bach; for him, other composers apparently did not come up to snuff. After playing some of "The Inventions," Gordon made self-deprecating remarks about his ability. When pressed, he reluctantly admitted his one-time desire to
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be a concert pianist, but felt he lacked the discipline to make it. I remember standing next to that piano transfixed by what was clearly a magnificent performance—me a hardened jazz fanatic. The man was a gifted player.
After a week of studying his collection in Panama, Gordon offered to drive me back to Costa Rica where we could do some collecting enroute (and I could happily omit the ordeal of another bus ride). I was struck by two things on that trip: the man's knowledge of butterflies in the field (he knew everything), and his patience with my repeated, naive questions about how to distinguish the species of satyrines, charaxines, and ithomiines. On the drive back to Costa Rica, I remember his wild-eyed excitement if I unwittingly stumbled upon something interesting. After completely exhausting my recollection of what the insect was doing, Gordon then worked relentlessly until he had found the species and collected it. As comes natural to any great teacher, Gordon kindled a fanatical interest in me by his example.
Some days later on a mud track through the forest in Costa Rica, I remember being introduced to the quintessential Gordon Small. In the midst of conversation he suddenly exclaimed, "Hey, there's Napeogenes hemistictaV', jumped out of the jeep, opened the back, attached several poles to his net, and caught a butterfly flying at a subcanopy level. He was right, of course. It was hemisticta, and no matter that neither one of us had ever been to this locality or seen the butterfly alive before, let alone pick it out of the other mimetic species flying there at the time. This type of feat was commonplace with Gordon and similar scenes were to be repeated virtually every time I was in the field with him. Over the years Gordon would periodically visit me in Costa Rica to check on what I had turned up and to talk butterflies, and we'd go off collecting together. Somehow he always found new things, even at localities I had been pounding away at for years. Quintessential Gordon Small.
When I left permanent residence in Costa Rica in 1980 to go to graduate school, Gordon and I kept up a steady flow of letters concerned with all aspects of butterflies. My education on butterflies continued through these letters. While I was at the British Museum writing the text for my Costa Rican butterfly book Gordon was one of my most constant correspondents. In letters he would query about the types of this or that species, inform me about his work in the Darien and to proudly tell me that he had finally begun to rear caterpillars and that he could see their importance to systematics. He provided a sounding board for my many questions about certain species, and he often made sound suggestions about the names of certain troublesome species, even though he had never seen the types. Even from afar, sight unseen, Gordon was usually correct about the identity of the specimens that sat in front of me. In fact, I remember Gordon being correct about most things concerned with butterflies throughout the twelve years of our friendship. He had a gift for this type of thing.
Gordon was a fanatically meticulous person who never relaxed his critical standards for anyone or anything when it involved butterflies. I remember the last time I saw Gordon. Standing around between sessions at the Lepidopterists' Society meetings at University of California, Berkeley, I saw him enter the building and make his way over to me. Delighted to see him and keen to hear his response to my then just published book (1987, The butterflies of Costa Rica and their natural history, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 327 pp.) I immediately introduced him to someone near me as the person who taught me everything I knew about butterflies. Gordon was cheerful and shook off the compliment, but I knew him well enough to know something was up. When I asked what was wrong he said, "Phil, you misrepresented me in your book." Feeling the bottom drop out of my stomach, I asked him falteringly, "I'm terribly sorry. How?" Gordon stated in dead earnestness, "In your species account of Haematera pyramus. I collected the species by clapping my net down over individuals visiting wet sand. Those individuals never flew. The person who was collecting with me chased his down, and the observation that they flew like Diaethria was his, not mine."
I remember Gordon as a consummate butterfly biologist. Quite simply, Gordon B. Small, Jr. knew more about butterflies than any person I have ever met, corresponded with, or have heard about. Many of the places where he worked have vanished into the oblivion of human "progress." All that remains of those Panamanian habitats are the
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mute testimonies to tropical butterfly diversity now found in his collection, currently housed at the Smithsonian Institution. We and future generations owe him a profound debt of gratitude for singlehandedly learning the butterfly fauna of an entire country and for making such a thorough and masterful collection. Death has silenced a truly great naturalist, teacher, and extraordinary human being. After losing such a friend and source of inspiration, some of us may feel left behind. But, as in so many things, I remember that Gordon always was way ahead of the rest of us.
P. J. DeVries, Department of Zoology, University of Texas, Austin, Texas 78712.