THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 119 



ECOLOGICAL LABELS. 



I have been greatly interested in reading the suggestive article by 

 Mr. Lutz, in your last (April) number, on labels. It voices a need, which 

 every student of ecology will have felt, for more information than 

 accompanies the specimens in the usual collection. No one can collect 

 insects carefully without making observations that are new to science, and 

 it is unfortunate that such observations are generally left unrecorded. Mr. 

 Lutz proposes a plan that would make the observations of the amateur 

 collector available for comparison, and that would wonderfully enhance 

 the value of his cabinet. It is, in short, proposed that the collection shall 

 be its own expositor, that pin labels on the specimens shall tell at a 

 glance what usually, if recorded at all, has to be hunted through 

 the leaves of an accompanying catalogue. Nature's label is, of course, 

 already on every specimen, but we are not yet skillful enough at reading 

 the imprint of environment as written in bodily form and structure, and 

 need to be told in our own language. 



But instead of using our common language, Mr. Lutz proposes a 

 system of signs and symbols — blue, green and red lines on labels to 

 indicate hydro-, meso- and xerozoic animals respectively, and bits of 

 coloured paper of various shapes to indicate a few special habitats — and 

 therein, I fear, lies the weakness of his plan. It is arbitrary. His 

 collection without his key would possess no notes at all. I have 

 used coloured papers, but have never happened to hit upon the same 

 meaning for them that he suggests, and I have long since forgotten what 

 some colours once stood for. I frequently see wholly enigmatical bits of 

 coloured paper on the pins of specimens in the collections of other people. 

 Under existing circumstances it would be difficult to bring about that 

 uniformity so absolutely essential even in the use of the few signs 

 suggested. 



But a far more serious defect of the plan is that it does not go far 

 enough. The few types of habitat provided for are entirely insufficient for 

 ecological purposes. The collector of aquatic insects would have to 

 begin at once inventing additional signs to indicate anything further than 

 that his insects came out of the water, and the collector of gall insects 

 would find in the system no provision for the important facts he would 

 wish to record. No system of arbitrary signs could conveniently meet the 

 needs of all entomologists, even if it could be trusted not to lead to dire 

 confusion. 



