ECOLOGICAL LABELS

Extract

I have been greatly interested in reading the suggestive article by Mr. Lutz, in your last (April) number, on labels. It voices a need, whichevery 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, andit is unfortunate that such observations are generally left unrecorded. Mr.Lutz proposes a plan that would make the observations of tlte 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 throught 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.