37 
A SIMPLE FORM OF ACCESSIONS CATALOGUE. 
By E. D. Bau, Fort Collins, Colo. 
This Association has listened in the past to three excellent papers 
on organization methods in economic entomology, and any State worker 
at the present time who has not a thoroughly satisfactory system of 
recording his observations can not do better than carefully study the 
papers presented on this subject by Dr. Forbes, Dr. Hopkins, and 
Professor Webster; and if his department has an abundance of ecler- 
ical help he probably can not do better than to adopt one of these 
systems. On the other hand, if his working force is somewhat limited 
the modification hereafter suggested is submitted for his consideration. 
The author has, however, no intention of offering a system in compe- 
tition with either of these, but simply of suggesting one or two modi- 
fications that can be used in connection with any of these systems or 
a modified system to be used when it is impossible to carry out a more 
elaborate one in detail. 
The average working force of our stations in economic entomology 
does not exceed two men, and if the division of salary be any criterion 
then not over one-third to one-half of their time is devoted to the eco- 
nomic work. Now, under such conditions it would be impracticable 
to maintain a system of recording requiring the expenditure of any 
considerable amount of time in the clerical part and at the same time 
carry on any very extended experimentation, hampered as they are 
by the ordinary routine of the college work. 
Another important factor that may well be considered here is that 
in this combination of college and station not all collecting is along 
economic lines, but that one of the duties as a college officer is to build 
up a systematic collection, an obligation requiring almost endless years 
of careful and thorough work. Naturally enough this work and that 
of the station is carried on at the same time, and it would seem that 
the best system of recording for the smaller stations, and, in fact, for 
the great majority of our stations, would be that in which the two dif- 
ferent objects could be combined, and that with a minimum amount 
of clerical work, label writing, bookkeeping, ete. 
The following system which was experimented with by the author 
and finally adopted at the Iowa station, and which has been used in 
the Colorado station for three years, seems to meet these require- 
ments and at the same time furnish a broad enough basis on which to 
build up any one of the complete systems, if one chooses to do so. 
In this system, which may be conveniently called the date system 
from its fundamental principle, the accession catalogue contains one 
entry for each trip or special collection, this entry being in the form 
of a date, giving the year, month, and day; then every specimen as it 
is labeled up, in place of an accessions catalogue number, as in ordi- 
nary way, bears the place of capture and the date on a single small 
label. 
