Entomological societies, as a category of learned societies, grew out of small, localized groups whose members lived less than a day’s carriage ride from each other. In an age when specimens could not be entrusted to an irregular (or nonexistent) postal service, visiting the “cabinet” (collection) of a fellow member to see an actual specimen was necessary. Today, international societies have hundreds to thousands of members; activities range from having only a journal subscription in common to annual meetings with thousands of participants. From a largely amateur base in the 19th century, entomological societies have grown increasingly professionalized, a pattern similar to the societies covering ornithology and botany, which also had their beginnings as organized sciences with broad, nonprofessional participation.
In response to increased professionalization of entomology in the 20th century, a large number of regional and international specialized societies have arisen, to serve both professional and amateur entomologists having particular systematic or disciplinary interests. From a time when all entomologists were amateurs (mid-19th century), through a period of increased professionalization resulting in marginalization of amateurs (early to late 20th century), amateur entomologists continue their contributions to the field today.
Herbert Osborn, in his Brief History of Entomology published in 1952, wrote, “the origin of entomological societies is to me still a mystery.” We now know why: the first entomological society in the world was founded in London, sometime between 1720 and 1742. The exact date is uncertain because the collection, topics, and regalia (and presumably the minutes) of this group, the (first) Aurelian Society, were destroyed in the Great CornhiU Fire of March 25, 1748. Its meeting place, Swan Tavern on Exchange Street, was burnt to the ground; the members, then in session, barely escaped with their lives.
GENERAL FEATURES OF SOCIETIES
Entomological societies share some common features: Membership requires payment of dues to maintain the organization, there is often
a “pro forma” election to membership held at a meeting of the society, and prospective members are rarely refused. For example, the only person ever turned down for membership in the New York Entomological Society was “the author of a new version of the theory of spontaneous generation!” Honorary membership (usually limited to a small number) is offered to accomplished and distinguished entomologists in the home country of the society or from other countries. Distinguished Regular members may be elevated to Fellow status. There is often a category of nonlocal membership, usually referred to as “corresponding.” Regular meetings are held, at least annually, often more frequently, with guest speakers and the opportunities for members to provide a greater number of shorter presentations. There are constitutions and by-laws, with officers who preside over business meetings. Field trips (“field days”) to collect insects were a major feature of 19th and early 20th century society meetings. Annual meeting circulars and programs will suggest collecting opportunities near to meeting sites. Some societies have a tradition of insect protection: As early as 1896, the Royal Entomological Society (London) (RES) had a committee to look into protecting British insects from extinction. In 1988, the RES became the first entomological society to join the International Union of Conservation of Nature. But as far back as the second International Congress of Entomology, held at Oxford in 1912, N. C. Rothschild spoke on steps taken to protect insects in Great Britain. The British Entomology and Natural History Society formed several Conservation Working Groups in 1994 to bring the expertise of its members to bear on matters relating to conservation of the invertebrate fauna of the United Kingdom and to express the field naturalists’ views of which species deserve special attention.
The publications of these societies—as proceedings, journals, memoirs, annals, bulletins, and newsletters—have been the main vehicle for dissemination of scientific information and more personal information about the work and lives of entomologists since the founding of the early societies. For example, many societies begin a publishing program the same year or soon after their founding (the French began Annales in 1832, the year the Societe Entomologique de France was founded; the RES began its Transactions in 1834, a year after its founding). Publications have served as a medium of exchange with other societies in order to build up another feature, that of society library. The American Entomological Society (AES) library, with over 15,000 volumes, has been incorporated since 1947 into the Academy of Natural Sciences (Philadelphia, PA) library; the Pacific Coast Entomological Society does not maintain a separate library, but journals received in exchange for its publication, the Pan-Pacific Entomologist, and topics received for review therein are deposited in the library of its host institution, the California Academy of Sciences.
Several societies (e.g., the Amateur Entomologists’ Society, Orthopterists’ Society, Entomological Society of America) have produced a series of handtopics and guides for identifying insects and have a regular publishing program outside of the usual journal- and memoir-type series. The Brooklyn Entomological Society (BES) took as a goal the publication of alphabetical lists of scientific terms used in technical descriptions in entomology. The first entomological vocabulary published in North America was 800 terms and definitions, in Vol. 6 of the Bulletin of the BES in 1886. This was followed in 1906 by the BES-sponsored Glossary, an Explanation of Terms Used in Entomology by J. B. Smith (4000 entries). The BES published J. A. Torre-Bueno’s A Glossary of Entomology in 1937 (10,000 terms, 12,000 definitions), and a supplement to it in 1960 by G. S. Tulloch added 500 new terms and revised 160 others. The Entomological Society of America (ESA) publishes the only society-sponsored list of insect common names; in other countries this is usually a function of the department or ministry of agriculture.
Insect collections of societies and their members have become important components of the holdings of large institutions: For example, the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia has the collection of the AES; the New York Entomological Society collection has been incorporated into those of the American Museum of Natural History. Members of the Pacific Coast Entomological Society often deposit type specimens of species described in the Society’s journal (Pan-Pacific Entomologist) with the collection of the California Academy of Sciences. Society collections have at times been controversial: The (third) Aurelian Society in England, founded in 1801, dissolved 5 years later because of the odious requirement that members donate their best specimens to a central society collection. Disagreements over the deposition and loan of specimens of the Entomological Society of Philadelphia collection led to its expulsion in 1862 of its first president, the eminent coleopterist John L. LeConte.
Another feature of some societies is a youth program: Membership is offered to young people at a discounted rate, special publications are aimed at them, occasional exhibits are developed to tour schools or be displayed at annual meetings, and field days featuring insect collecting trips are planned. The New York Entomological Society formed a Junior Division in 1958. The ESA has had a Youth Membership category since 1989. The Young Entomologists’ Society (U.S.A.) traces its origin to the Teen International Entomology Group, founded in 1965 by a teenager as a worldwide correspondence club to exchange letters and specimens with like-minded teens around the world.
These youth programs may take time to develop. For example, the RES Youth Development Scheme of 1990 had hopes of local and regional participation by its Fellows, which did not materialize, and the program failed a year later. But from it came the Bug Club, now a national organization in Great Britain.
ORIGINS
The earliest scientific societies were founded in Europe in the mid-16th and early 17th centuries, but the first entomological societies came about in England in the mid-18th century for the purpose of sharing knowledge of the Lepidoptera. These were the Society of Aurelians (also called the [first] Aurelian Society, formed sometime between 1720 and 1742) and its successor, the (second) Aurelian Society, formed in 1762. “Aurelia” is a classical name for the chrysalis of a butterfly; an aurelian is a butterfly collector. The (first) Aurelian Society was finished by the Great Cornhill Fire of 1748; the second ceased in 1767 because of personality clashes among members; a third Aurelian Society, founded in 1801, disappeared by 1806.
The oldest entomological society still in existence—the Entomological Club of London, founded in 1826—has had only eight members at a time since its inception and meets one evening each month to dine at members’ homes or other places. It also hosts the annual Verrall Supper for entomologists, a tradition since 1887. The oldest existing national entomological societies are Societe Entomologique de France (1832), the Royal Entomological Society (London) (1833), and the Nederlandsche Entomologische Vereeniging (1845). See Table I for a list of societies that are 100 years old or older and are still in existence as of 2007.
NORTH AMERICAN SOCIETIES
The first North American entomological society was the (first) Entomological Society of Pennsylvania which, from 1842 to 1853, took as its only mission the taxonomic description of American insect species. It did not try to spread knowledge of insects to the general public, nor to encourage the study of economic (applied) entomology, nor
TABLE IEntomological Societies Founded in 1907 or Earlier, Still in Existence in 2007 |
aspects such as apiculture or pest control). Only 8 specialty societies, devoted to a taxonomic group or some other special, nonapplied aspect, were listed: 3 devoted to Coleoptera (in Austria, the United States, and Japan), 4 for Lepidoptera (3 in Japan and 1 in the United States), and 1 international society for the study of social insects. The post-1956 period has seen a huge development of specialty societies. Today, there are over 100 specialty societies (including 1 for conservation of invertebrates in general and 1 devoted to young entomologists). There has been increased worldwide interest in Lepidoptera; at least 22 new societies formed in the period from 1970 to 1999. Although there are specialty societies devoted to at least nine orders of insects, the majority are devoted to just three: Coleoptera (12), Lepidoptera (39), and Odonata (14). In addition, regular international symposia are held on other, smaller orders (e.g., Trichoptera and Ephemeroptera). Plecoptera and other aquatic order specialists have a base in the North American Benthological Society. Just as improved optics (binoculars, spotting scopes, cameras) and better field guides stimulated the mid-20th century interest in birdwatching, similar improvements in entomological materials (e.g., a recent series of topics on identifying butterflies and dragonflies with binoculars) have made Lepidoptera and, more recently, Odonata popular subjects of observation and interest to larger numbers of people, who in turn have formed many new entomological societies devoted to their insect passions.
ROLE OF AMATEUR ENTOMOLOGISTS
Professionalization and an improved image as scientists has been an issue for entomologists since the 19th century. From their origin in amateur lepidopterist clubs and local societies of collectors interested in the taxonomic position of their specimens and little else, entomological societies grew into associations of applied scientists who recognized the contribution of a client base of agriculturalists but did not make a place for them or for hobbyist entomologists (amateurs) in their national organizations. Once applied entomologists in the United States organized into the AAEE, they neither encouraged nor discouraged nonprofessional participation, but instead created two classes of membership. One was a professional category, which required educational qualifications and vocational activity; the other was an “associate” category, which was a second-class membership for amateurs and others with inadequate qualifications.
Yet, amateur entomologists, who had been the founders of the field and its earliest supporters as collectors and benefactors, continued to make contributions. Early societies at times depended on wealthy amateurs for support. The best example is the support given to the AES by one of its founders, Thomas B. Wilson, an executive of the Pennsylvania Railroad. He paid for the AES’s building and was patron of its library and collection. Wilson provided a sinecure for E. T. Cresson, Sr. (one of North America’s greatest hymenopterists), as his private secretary, which in reality supported Cresson as curator of the AES collection and its corresponding secretary for many years. “The Wilson Fund” was still supporting AES publications in 1984, almost 120 years after their provider’s death.
The first national Canadian entomological society was formed in 1863 by a 25-year-old divinity student, Charles J. S. Bethune, and a 28-year-old pharmacist, William Saunders. They founded its journal, The Canadian Entomologist, in 1868 and were the sole contributors to its first two numbers. Each went on to distinguished careers in Canadian entomology (Bethune as Professor of Entomology and Zoology at Ontario Agricultural College, Saunders as the first Director of Experimental Farms [agricultural experiment stations] for the Dominion of Canada) but they both had begun the Entomological Society of Canada as amateurs.
Amateur entomologists were always welcome to publish in the Journal of the New York Entomological Society. Annie T. Slosson was a NYES founder (in 1892) and the largest financial supporter of its journal—her donated specimens of Lepidoptera raised the most money at the Society’s auctions. She was a well-known collector and contributed many journal articles, though she did not publish new taxonomic names for the species she gathered; she preferred to send them to specialists to describe.
The Cambridge Entomological Club was saved from extinction by an infusion of amateur members. The Club was founded at Harvard in 1874 with 12 members. It reached 48 members by the time of incorporation in 1877, but had declined in 1902 to just 7 (of whom only 3 or 4 attended meetings at any one time). The Club combined with a local amateur society, The Harris Club, with its 38 members, in 1903, and active amateur members have been an important component of the Cambridge Entomological Club ever since. The participation by amateurs was encouraged in these early days by ant specialist, Professor William M. Wheeler, who supported amateur naturalists and said, “We have all known amateurs who could make an enthusiastic naturalist out of an indifferent lad in the course of an afternoon’s rambling, and, alas, professors who could destroy a dozen budding naturalists in the course of an hour’s lecture.”
In the first volume (1908) of Annals ofthe Entomological Society of America, the Canadian entomologist H. H. Lyman, himself an amateur, urged the society “”o secure the support and cooperation of the great body of amateur entomologists.” This has not been accomplished. Almost 80 years later, in 1986, a survey of the ESA’s 9111 members found only 31 (0.5% of the 5505 respondents) who described themselves as amateurs. But amateur entomologists have found welcome and a home in regional and local societies devoted to taxonomic specialties (Coleoptera and Lepidoptera predominately, but Odonata have become popular) or geographically restricted. Since 1939, the Amateur Entomologists’ Society (United Kingdom) has been a flagship of the great amateur enterprise, publishing its bulletin and a large number of identification guides and handtopics.
A survey of adult amateur entomologists in 1987 by Janice Matthews found that they often suffer from being stereotyped by professional entomologists as less qualified or educated and get a cool (or even hostile) reception from professionals. Amateurs actually produce the great bulk of educational outreach on entomological topics (e.g., programs for school children, other amateur naturalists, and the public at large). Adult amateur entomologists’ professional lives align very closely with those of professional entomologists: Amateur entomologists are doing science and math in their daily work; they are in education; they are in service occupations (by comparison, pest control work is also a service occupation). The science background of amateur entomologists can be as strong as that of professionals, but is often in a related field. None of the respondents to Matthews’ study reported that a professional entomologist influenced their childhood interest in insects; the failure of the Youth Development Scheme of the RES in 1990 was attributed to just this kind of lack of interest on the part of its members toward young entomologists.
That amateur entomologists have made, and continue to make, great contributions to entomology is unquestioned. From the great coleopterist P. F. M. A. DeJean (Napoleon’s general and aide-de-camp at Waterloo), to 19th century lepidopterist William H. Edwards (a lawyer and coal company president), to civil engineer Richard H. Stretch (who first warned of the economic dangers of cottony cushion scale in California in 1872), through a long list of physician-entomologists (e.g., H. Bernard Kettlewell, who was a general practitioner while pursuing his studies of melanism in Lepidoptera), to the great student of leaf-mining flies, Kenneth Spencer (an electronics executive, he published 74 papers before retiring in 1969 and then published 45 more papers in the next 20 years), to the Parisian taxi driver Pierre Morvan (honored with the Rolex Enterprise Award in 1987 for his biogeographic study of Asian ground beetles, he is a self-taught entomologist and author of over 50 scientific publications), entomology advances through the efforts of its many amateur practitioners.
