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The contribution made by Alexander Henry Haliday to Monographium Chalciditum

Overview

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Opposites attract, if for no other reason than complementation. Walker was, not always a punctilious worker, neither was he interested in organisation, of himself or the insects he described in vast numbers. He was, though, boundlessly energetic and, despite in later life subject to tirades of abuse from his fellow entomologists, unflagging in his efforts and whilst not entirely impervious to criticism, able to withstand it with, for the most part, indifference. Walker was of the "lets get on with it "school of thought, his mission in life to describe as many species as possible from as many groups as interested him (which was almost all), from all parts of the world and without much thought, if any, as to who may have preceded his efforts. A natural consequence was that in later years, very many of his species were recognized as already described, sometimes by himself and added to what can only be described as a nightmare of synononymy. This was precisely what Haliday had spent his own life trying to avoid and yet there is no trace of criticism or even gentle rebuke or helpful suggestion in Haliday's correspondence with his indefatigible freind. It is most likely that Haliday's obsessive desire for perfection and orderly arrangement of the groups of insects led from the 1840's to bouts of ill-health, sometimes threatening and perhaps he found in Walker his other side and certainly an enthusiam for insects as living marvels which Walker felt as deeply as he did himself. Tellingly, John Curtis, Haliday's mentor, as sensitive in his personal life as in his perfect insect art, also had a very close life-long association with Walker following from a " mutually agreeable" tour of France in 1830, collecting Satyridae and other butterflies. Curtis, was to judge from his vituperative comments on James Stephens and the kindly interlocutor Westwood, not always an easy companion, but again there is no hint of difficulty.

Haliday's lifelong correspondence with Francis Walker began In 1834 when Haliday was 27, Walker, 25. In the first surviving letter, dated November 5 1834, Walker offers specimens and books and remarks on entomological developments.


”I thought you might possibly not be aware of the existence of a book published this year by Nees von Esenbeck on the Ichneumones Adscits. Many species of Aphidius,Microgaster, Bracon, Alysia and [ ] are there in described. If you have this book and wish to possess it and you will indicate unto me how to transmit it I shall be happy to procure it and forward it to you”. (Letter F.W. to A.H.H. Nov 5 1834) 1 4 “I saw Mr Curtis today – he requested me to be remembered to you and to mention that he had forwarded a microscope for you”. (Ibid). “The editor of the Entomological Magazine will be glad to learn whether it is your intention to favour him with an article for the January No.” (Ibid).

Indicative of Walker’s generosity towards Haliday is “Your promise of an essay on the genus Leiophron* induced me to write to you to offer to transmit my species of that genus to you …… I have lately placed my minute Ichneumones in boxes and I request permission to send them for your inspection – I cannot think of troubling you with them unless you will promise to keep them as many years as is convenient to you and to take all the species that are not already in your collection. If you will undertake this examination they shall be immediately forwarded to you – they are all arranged in species though not in genera but few I am sorry to say are named".

After Francis Walkers trip to the North Cape and Alteen in the schooner Harriet from which he returned through Sweden and Denmark. Walker sent specimens to Haliday, “I hope soon to have the pleasure of sending a set of the insects I collected to you and another to the Belfast Museum” (Walk to Haliday Jan 13 1837).

Haliday clearly supplied Walker with specimens and above all manuscript in return for these favours. In a letter dated Jan 12 1835 Walker writes to Haliday “having determined to publish descriptions of the British species of Platygaster sometime in next month (Feb) and recollecting that you kindly offered me your assistance in this task. I write to opine you that I shall gratefully acknowledge any information respecting them” and on May 20 1835 “I ought to be very grateful for the trouble you have taken to illustrate my monograph and in accepting your services I hold myself to be under great obligation to you. I am much pleased with your plate – it illustrates all the most remarkable forms of Platygaster and I agree with you that typical species and those which recide furthest from them make the most useful figures …. I will have your plate engraved very shortly for I wish to publish the Platygaster before the end of July”.

In his introductory remarks to? Walker states “In the first volume of the Entomological Magazine there is an excellent methodical arrangement of these and together minute Hymenoptera by Mr Haliday who by the loan of his Mss and collection contributed much to the following descriptions.”

As has been remarked Walker was a species describer and not a systematist in the strict sense as he himself realised. – “In the past few years I have felt my incompetency to form a good general systematic arrangement of the Chalcidae and I am the more convinced of this whenever I describe a new species and my other pursuits will not suffer me to give undivided time or attention to these creatures and the remarks in your last letter and the Mss which you sent me have fully shown me how much greater your knowledge of the general and comparative groups of Chalcidae and of the relations which they bear to the other groups of Hymenoptera is that mine …… yet it is a duty I owe to the public that my writings should be wound up and revised and clearly systematized. I am well aware that the time which you are able to set aside for entomology is already fully occupied yet I cannot refrain from requesting your assistance. My descriptions of Darwin’s Chalcides are printed and will be published immediately. I have all the specimens in my possession and I will forward them to you together with all my own collection and they will be speedily followed by all the remnants I have left. You are quite welcome to retain mine as long as you feel inclined and what I ask of you is in plain words that you will point out my errors, supply my omissions, reunite the species that I have cut up and divide into groups the over-populous and disordered genera. Your drawings of the genera would be most suitably accompanied by such an Essay” ….. (letter Walker to Haliday July 29 1839).

Alexander Henry Haliday ,evidently saw some of Darwin's Australian material described in Volume 2 " The mandibles of this species are very strong. The usual structures of the antennae may still be traced in it, and the gradual development of the two basal joints seen in E. Zalates (which retains some of the development of the metatarsus observable in this) until the 1st. becomes the longest joint, as in the other sub-families, and in some of the Eucharidae, as E. Xeniades and E. furcata".- Haliday. "The lateral divisions of the scutellum, which in most Chalcidites are triangular and separate, but in the Encyrtidae and other Eucharidae connected and attenuated at their junction, here become coalite in their entire breadth; a structure even more characteristic than the terminal spines, but still analogous to the usual type"-Haliday.

In later works Walker, accepted as an authority described chalcids " trouvées au bluff de Saint-Jean, dans la Floride orientale" by Edward Doubleday, who worked primarily on Lepidoptera and Arnold Förster, a German hymenopterist from Aachen.

Walker's Dilemma

In some libraries that in Turin, Italy being a notable example, all of Walker's papers on chalcids are bound together under the title Monographium Chalciditum dated London, 1833-1842. They are a miscellany. No doubt, had time been available Walker and Haliday would have collaborated on a monographic work were they able to find a publisher. There was no support for this it seems and in any event Haliday's attentions were soon to return to "my old friends the Diptera". Obsessively orderly though Haliday was in his entomological researches this was far less true of his correspondence and his health occasionally deteriorated rendering work impossible altogether. Frequent trips to Italy or business matters also intervened. To make matters worse he was, throughout his life apt to switch from group to group and slow to publish. Although Walker salvaged what he could of such abandoned research, gathering together what was known of the chalcids in a series of papers including Haliday's notes and partial descriptions, Monographium Chalciditum was an exception with barely a mention of Haliday except in reference to specimens although Haliday may have provided more descriptive text than Walker recognizes. Walker could have awaited further but should he?. The problem with perfection is that it is seldom acheived; in his exchanges with Haliday Walker must have had many occasions to reflect on this.

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