120 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Still, I have faith in the general idea Mr. Lutz sets forth. I believe 

 the pins or vials can be made to carry far more ecological information than 

 notebooks usually do carry, and that the usefulness of collections would 

 be greatly enhanced thereby. I have been experimenting with the loading 

 of the pins, and I have come to the conclusion that the English tongue is 

 our safest means of communicating observations, and that printed labels 

 are both feasible and economical. Printers' ink is black and permanent, 

 in air or in alcohol.* 



What sort of printed labels are now commonly used ? There is but 

 one that has become at all universal, and that is the locality and date 

 label. A collector's name label is not uncommon, nor is a sex sign label. 

 Then there is the red label with " type " printed across the end, well 

 established in some of the more important collections, and I would 

 suggest, if entomologists may act in concert, the restriction of this colour 

 to typical material in the broader sense ; the above-mentioned label for 

 types of species, and a red label with the author's name for all material 

 that has served as the basis of his papers. Some Lepidopterists are using 

 " at light " and " at sugar " labels, and I have found almost indispensable 

 "bred" and " taken in transformation " labels. These are all separately 

 useful, and if one be getting printed labels at all, he can get them all, and 

 more, almost as easily as he can get one of them alone, for labels are 

 printed a dozen or more at an impression, and a dozen different forms can 

 be set up as readily as a dozen of one form. Neither does one find his 

 pins becoming encumbered by labels, for rarely are more than two 

 necessary. 



What sort of ecological labels may advantageously be added to the 

 foregoing? Probably a different sort in every ecological group. But if 

 they be printed in plain English, it will matter little how many different 

 sorts or whether collectors in the same group use the same sort. So, 

 I will offer a suggestion relative to recording ecological data for aquatic 

 insects, a label that will tell fairly the sort of aquatic home from which the 

 insect comes, consisting of twelve words descriptive of features of habitat, 

 printed in four columns of three words each in pearl type : 



bottom level mud reedy 

 side sloping sand trashy 

 surface steep rock bare 



*I am keeping an ever-increasing proportion of my collection in alcohol. It is the 

 bane of American Neuropterology that systematists have kept, or have tried to keep, 

 their specimens all on pins. There is one thing much worse than a specimen without a 

 label, and that is a label without a specimen, especially if the specimen were a type. 



