THE LABELING OF ENTOMOLOGICAL SPECIMENS

During a visit to Great Britain a few years ago I looked over a numbered of the Entomological collections in the public Museums there. The specimens in them were labeled so as to show the order, sub-order, and family that they belonged to and their individual scientific names. with few exceptions there were no records of their geographical distribution, and when information of habitation was given it was of a wide nature, as North America, Asia, or Europe. Data of seasonal appearance or date of capture were entirely absent. Since then I have foudn that many collections on this side of the Atlantic are in the same condition, and private collections in particular. That such information should be wanting, especially in a public collection, is to be regretted; for however beautifully mounted, classified and correctly named the specimens may be, they are of little paractical value. The biological student gets no more information than he would form any entomological publication containing plates, unless it be the identification of some rare insect. The reasont that public collections are lacking in such data is because they have been built up from donations or by purchase – and until recent years the study of insects rarely consisted of more than collecting, mounting, naming, and placing in classified order. This can be remedied by the present-day collector, professional or amateur.