Lessons for a young naturalist, or, how Jack Vallentyne launched my career

摘要

My first contact with Jack was disconcerting. It was about 1955, and for young readers, there were no ipods, cell phones, or internet, and when you picked up a telephone you could get an operator, free of charge. The largest personal computer available could add and subtract 2 digit numbers and that was about it, except for the comfortable glow of the vacuum tubes. I was a member of an undergraduate biology club and we put up displays in a small cabinet in Morrill Hall at Cornell University. Continuing a minor interest in mollusks that I had in high school, I made a display of local freshwater mussels and terrestrial snails. Unfortunately, like most beginners, I misidentified one of the specimens. Jack left a note on the window of the display that read, "Is taxonomy dead in Morrill Hall?" Perhaps this taught me the wrong lesson, for I became overlv cautious after that.