Hubricht's collection is 

 packed in modular crates 

 to facilitate moving from 

 city to city. 



tinct third with 50 described land snail species from 

 this region. 



Dedicated efforts, perpetual interest in what might 

 be found in the next valley, a job enabling him to spend 

 time in most sections of the Eastern United States — 

 these are keys to his success. Then active retirement 

 involving spring collecting trips of three to four weeks 

 when rains had activated the snails, with shorter fall 

 trips coinciding with rains to fill in distributional gaps. 

 His scientific training came from self study, association 

 with enthusiastic naturalists in St. Louis, and especially 

 from his 7Vi years working with a leading biologist, 

 Edgar Anderson. 



The St. Louis years provided the focus and skills. 

 His own efforts and organizational abilities resulted in 

 assembling his unique collection, compiling the massive 

 amounts of data, and, most importantly, deciding when 

 to present this as a summary work. Not as a completed 

 task, but as a mark along the way. Even casual glances at 

 his published maps show many areas in which little or no 

 collecting has been done (Wisconsin and Illinois are 

 among the blanker areas), questions as to species range 

 limits remain unsolved, and then there are the Ap- 

 palachian Mountain areas, a center of evolution for 

 many plants and animals, with undoubted new species 

 and even genera to be discovered by dedicated and 

 skilled collectors. 



As his maps were refined and his descriptive papers 

 multiplied, other malacologists urged him to publish 

 them. In the mid-1970s he had sample pages prepared in 

 close to the actual published form. At this point, Field 

 Museum offered to help with issuing the final product. 

 But Hubricht knew that he could, with his retirement 



years at hand, present a much more useful and com- 

 prehensive volume with additional work. And the added 

 decade of effort and refinement followed. 



It will be at least another 40 years before somebody 

 will supersede his efforts, after another lifetime of dedi- 

 cated efforts. His dream was a large one, and well ful- 

 filled with the massive collection and well received sum- 

 mary publication. The latest entry in his mollusk catalog 

 is lot 48,957, some Mississippi specimens of the land 

 snail Stenotrema leai aliciae, collected November 23, 

 1985. He modestly points out that perhaps 6,000 lots of 

 foreign land snails, freshwater clams, and some fresh- 

 water snails have been donated to museums previously, 

 so he retains only about 43,000 lots with 500,000+ 

 specimens. 



This then is the summary of the career and contri- 

 butions to date of a dedicated naturalist and collector, 

 Leslie Hubricht. He has amassed an incomparable 

 collection of a major group of organisms, published on 

 them extensively, and prepared a landmark summary 

 that will aid the research of others for decades to come. 

 His efforts stand as an inspiration to all collectors and 

 naturalists, whatever their field of interest. 



Field Museum has been able to provide help to him 

 over the years, and published his summary work with 

 pride. But we have received so much from him in terms 

 of donated specimens and the types deposited, that we 

 are in his debt. And his confidence in the future of mala- 

 cological research at Field Museum, indicated by willing 

 his collection to us, is evidence of the interdependence 

 of individual efforts and institutional continuity, both in 

 advancing knowledge of the living world and preserving 

 samples and records of its diversity. Flf 



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