102 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



LABELS. 



Anyone who has had even the slightest experience in attempting to 

 get intelligent notes to accompany his acquisitions by exchange has 

 doubtless been sorely vexed — to put it no more strongly. Anyone who has 

 tried to keep a careful record of the conditions under which his own 

 collections were made has also doubtless felt the need of some better 

 scheme than the regulation notebook. It is for these reasons that I 

 suggest an idea which I find very useful. 



In the first place, I write (or print with a hand stamp) my own 

 locality labels so that I can fix the places definitely. The ordinary 

 entomologist, unless he has a large collection from precisely the same 

 limited locality, can scarcely afford to have special labels printed, and 

 general ones are useless when the collection is to be used for more than 

 a purely aesthetic exhibition. "Chicago, 111." tells almost nothing of 

 value for Chicago, if only the region within city limits is meant ; it is a big 

 place and any attempt to find a second specimen must necessarily be 

 made as much in the dark as the first. 



But the real plan which I wish to present is one by which full notes 

 of the insect's environment are kept upon the same pin with the insect, 

 and its ecology can thus be taken in with the same glance that sees the 

 mounted specimen. 



Botanical ecologists have divided plant habitats into hydrophytic, 

 mesophytic, and xerophytic. The same classification can be applied to 

 animals, and we would term those insects living in moist situations 

 " hydrozoic." " Xerozoic " follows naturally for the dry habitats ; but 

 when we come to " mesozoic " we have an interesting preemption by the 

 geologists. Nevertheless, whatever the names used, the habitat types 

 remain, and I have chosen to represent them in the following manner : 



Across the top of the locality label a solid ( ) blue line 



indicates that the specimen was found in water — the most extreme 



hydrozoic situation imaginable. A line of blue dashes ( ) means 



that the insect was taken in a swamp ; while blue dots ( ) signify a 



swale. Green is used for medium conditions — a solid green line 

 standing for dense woods ; green dashes for open woods ; and green dots 

 for thickets. A solid red line represents the driest sort of places — a 

 desert or dry rocks ; red dashes, grass land, prairie, etc.; and red dots, 

 the boundary between grass land and forest. 



