and thus reduce the overall costs for the active participants. 
There are several indications that enthusiasm would develop rapid¬ 
ly were this educational aspect of a network to be developed. 
Since the beginning of MUDPIE we have offered instruction 
in the programming of time-shared computers, using the language 
BASIC. The course has usually been given in early summer, and 
has on several occasions been coordinated with the Systematics 
Seminars sponsored by the National Museum. About 15-25 people 
have taken the course each year. It has been run for two days, 
with the first day devoted to learning to program, and the second 
day spent in active contact with the computer, testing programs 
written by students. The courses have demonstrated that the 
material can be learned in a comparatively short time by a trained 
biologist, after which he is ready to participate in a network. 
Such instruction would be continued, of course, if the network 
were to be implemented. 
One meeting of individuals interested in the potential of 
the Exchange has already been held, at the American Museum, in 
1969. There were about 60-70 people present for the one-day 
session, which included demonstrations by time-share contractors 
of their equipment, additional demonstrations by scientists of 
the various on-line techniques in use at the time, talks by in¬ 
dividuals who had developed ideas for time-sharing use, and round 
table discussions of the potentials for a network as well as 
continued exchanges and collaboration. A symposium to be present¬ 
ed at the First International Congress of Systematic and Evolu¬ 
tionary Biology, in Boulder, Colorado, in August, 1973, is devo¬ 
ted almost entirely to MUDPIE activities, and might well be con¬ 
sidered the second meeting of participants. 
AVAILABLE PUBLICATION 
Sufficient copies of the publication " A New Approach in the 
Analysis of Biogeographic Data," Smithsonian Contributions to Zool- 
ogy, no. 107, 1971, pp. 1-28, are available to supply the mailing 
list of MUDPIE, but many of you already have it, and I do not wish 
to duplicate extensively. If you want a copy, please drop a card 
to the author, James A. Peters, at the address below. 
September, 1972 
Division of Reptiles and Amphibians 
National Museum of Natural History 
Washington, DC 20560 
