Errors in Bernard d'Abrera's books, an explanation

[Adam Cotton]

Bernard d'Abrera has asked me to post the following interesting information on his behalf:

When Bernard d'Abrera first arrived at the BMNH in 1969 to commence work on Butterflies of the Australian Region he was given clear instructions that every specimen removed, had to be replaced in its original hole in the drawer, with the original labels placed in correct succession on their pins. He was also instructed that he was not to undertake any new systematic revisions. Further, the description of new taxa was permissible only after consultation with curatorial staff, or if he was absolutely certain that the specimens represented undescribed taxa. As for nomenclature, he was instructed to use only the nomenclature indicated on the curatorial labels affixed to the drawers, and principally to the then sole card index system (there were no computers) present on each floor. Any taxonomy that ensued had to be based on the latest revisions by other specialists who may themselves have altered the card index system appropriately, sometimes only by hand. Consequently, many anomalies were imposed on the card index system, and these were transferred in good faith not only by d'Abrera, but also by other authors, in particular Ackery et al (1995, Carcasson's African Butterflies). Bálint (2000. Lepid. News: 9) says "It must be emphasized however, that most of the apparent errors and spellings in d'Abrera's works are generally caused by his faithful transposition of the spellings present in either the Museum's card index and/or in the curatorial labels in the type or main collection drawers". Forum members might be relieved to know that the card index system has now been replaced by more correct (but still not perfect) modern electronic records.

[wollastoni]

Very interesting, it indeed explains a lot of things.

I am glad Bernard d'Abrera had chosen the ICF to give these explanations. As he is registered here, I hope he will post from time to time.

[africaone]

Aug 5, 2015 8:21:31 GMT Adam Cotton said:

Bernard d'Abrera has asked me to post the following interesting information on his behalf:

When Bernard d'Abrera first arrived at the BMNH in 1969 to commence work on Butterflies of the Australian Region he was given clear instructions that every specimen removed, had to be replaced in its original hole in the drawer, with the original labels placed in correct succession on their pins. He was also instructed that he was not to undertake any new systematic revisions. Further, the description of new taxa was permissible only after consultation with curatorial staff, or if he was absolutely certain that the specimens represented undescribed taxa. As for nomenclature, he was instructed to use only the nomenclature indicated on the curatorial labels affixed to the drawers, and principally to the then sole card index system (there were no computers) present on each floor. Any taxonomy that ensued had to be based on the latest revisions by other specialists who may themselves have altered the card index system appropriately, sometimes only by hand. Consequently, many anomalies were imposed on the card index system, and these were transferred in good faith not only by d'Abrera, but also by other authors, in particular Ackery et al (1995, Carcasson's African Butterflies). Bálint (2000. Lepid. News: 9) says "It must be emphasized however, that most of the apparent errors and spellings in d'Abrera's works are generally caused by his faithful transposition of the spellings present in either the Museum's card index and/or in the curatorial labels in the type or main collection drawers". Forum members might be relieved to know that the card index system has now been replaced by more correct (but still not perfect) modern electronic records.

I can't believe that ! this is completely untrue at least for the books on African Saturniidae (for which I participate) and African fauna (those inspired by ABRI collection, see corrections published on these books by lepsoc).
I had a deal with Benard and his Publisher to publish an African catalogue of African Saturniidae before his books and that could be used as base (only base, no more pretention) of his book.
I only reveived some pages (proofs) to correct (Attacini, Epiphora), what I done. Anyway Bernard choosed to not follow the vast majority of them, even obvious ones (despite there were a lot) and to publish as he done usual (with result we know).
For the rest of the fauna, I never seen any proofs and the result is dramatic with choices and errors that are not inspired from the NHM collection (nor the cards they used in the past).
This is what I know, I don't know what happened with other books but Bernard has his own POV and method of work (that apparently he applied for all his work).
I don't have the pretention to say that I have the true on the African saturniidae systematic but what is sure is that what is reported in this post is false at least for this part of his work.
Bernard is a very kind and warm  person, I respect his faith and his status as a preacher but his POV on lepidoptera has nothing to do with the scientific one and his work is neither exact nor reliable.

[africaone]

just reading a similar post on insectnet that is not excatly the same (more precise), again the difficulty to mix same subject on two different forums

[Adam Cotton]

The only difference between this and the Insectnet post is that there is another paragraph referring to a post in the Insectnet thread, which was irrelevant to the current thread here. I am reproducing that paragraph here now:

The post [by gauthier on 12 March 2014 above] referring to two critiques of d'Abrera's Butterflies of the Afrotropical Region Part III by Collins et al (Metamorphosis, Vols. 24, 25) have been satisfactorily rebutted by d'Abrera (Metamorphosis, Vol.25: 138-140). In that paper d'Abrera has correctly pointed out the origin of the vast majority of 'errors' attributed to him by Collins et al. That origin, also cited by others including Ackery et al (1995, Carcasson's African Butterflies), was the original BMNH card index system then in use before the advent of modern, computer-based systematic lists. Other taxonomic and literary matters have also been comprehensively answered by d'Abrera. The editor of the journal has accepted and published his response.
insectnet.proboards.com/thread/4625/butterflies-australian-region-bernard-abrera?page=2#ixzz3hxTHOoCZ

[Adam Cotton]

Aug 5, 2015 8:32:11 GMT wollastoni said:

Very interesting, it indeed explains a lot of things.

I am glad Bernard d'Abrera had chosen the ICF to give these explanations. As he is registered here, I hope he will post from time to time.

Unfortunately Bernard is not very good with the internet, and basically what he does online is actually due to the efforts of his wife (she even types his e-mails for him). I wrote a tutorial for him so that he could learn how to post and create threads here, but he said that he is almost 75 now and doesn't have time to learn how, nor does he really want to get involved in discussions on forums such as this and Insectnet.

Adam.

[trehopr1]

Thank you Adam for passing along this information from Mr. d'Abrera. It all sounds very honest and matter of fact. The situation at the museum (at the time) was one of staying within the parameters (directives) of the curatorial staff. And at the same time trying to accomplish a large body of work which had never been undertaken by anyone before. The then staff certainly sounded very exacting in their expectations of the collections use. Not an easy thing when your breaking new ground in your own right !
I continue to have the UTMOST respect and admiration for Mr. d'Abrera. His pioneering efforts have enriched the lives of many lepidopterists the world over. His series of books on lepidoptera from different regions of the world have allowed others a glimpse of some of the wonders locked up and away from all but accredited "researchers" and those with unique contacts. And lastly, I feel his tireless efforts throughout ALL that goes into pulling togather each book has earned him his status as an authority on Lepidoptera.
I'm sure there are people out there critical on some of his views or opinions. Or perhaps, they feel "chaffed" because of some remark or follow-up that did not happen. Well, than I say they should PUBLISH their differing opinions to add credence to their argument and let the scientific body decide.
I still think his books have wonderful photo's of each specimen and adequate enough information. After all they were probably never mean't to be a treatise on any one species, genus, or region.

[africaone]

Aug 5, 2015 16:37:28 GMT trehopr1 said:

Thank you Adam for passing along this information from Mr. d'Abrera. It all sounds very honest and matter of fact. The situation at the museum (at the time) was one of staying within the parameters (directives) of the curatorial staff. And at the same time trying to accomplish a large body of work which had never been undertaken by anyone before. The then staff certainly sounded very exacting in their expectations of the collections use. Not an easy thing when your breaking new ground in your own right !
I continue to have the UTMOST respect and admiration for Mr. d'Abrera. His pioneering efforts have enriched the lives of many lepidopterists the world over. His series of books on lepidoptera from different regions of the world have allowed others a glimpse of some of the wonders locked up and away from all but accredited "researchers" and those with unique contacts. And lastly, I feel his tireless efforts throughout ALL that goes into pulling togather each book has earned him his status as an authority on Lepidoptera.
I'm sure there are people out there critical on some of his views or opinions. Or perhaps, they feel "chaffed" because of some remark or follow-up that did not happen. Well, than I say they should PUBLISH their differing opinions to add credence to their argument and let the scientific body decide.
I still think his books have wonderful photo's of each specimen and adequate enough information. After all they were probably never mean't to be a treatise on any one species, genus, or region.

I also respect the person but not the work.
The paradox is here : it is the only who have published kind pictures (except recently Bauer publication) of many species and it seems enough to keep admiration despite the very poor scientfic quality of his work. For many amateurs, it is only available reference.

I am not English and I have also to note that Bernard only use the NHM collection for his work (with few exceptions) and sorry to say that but NHM collection is not an exhaustive collection of the world fauna.

In one of his last work, he took pages and pages to settle account with ones that doesn't agree with him (the guy is not tolerant), and none to answer critics. Sorry to see that he uses the respect we all have for Adam to post on internet and propagate an untrue story.

[trehopr1]

I think Mr. d'Abrera's choice of utilizing the stupendous Lepidoptera holdings of the BMNH was the only obvious choice for many reasons. It still remains (I am sure) THE most historically important integrated Lepidoptera collection anywhere. It no doubt also possesses probably more lepi type material than anyplace else. Who wouldn't utilize that resource first and foremost !
Now don't get me wrong, I know there are other fine institutions with other very credible collections and holdings. However, as an individual would you REALLY have the time and money it would take to hopscotch around Europe visiting say half a dozen museums? And mind you that each and every one of em' is going to have a particular and yet different set of rules or regulations to follow.
So in all fairness I think that if anyone out there feels that some section(s) of these books are a "little light" scientifically or species wise than consider the ENORMITY of such an undertaking. I very much doubt that we will ever see any one individual tackle such a huge task again anytime soon.
In closing, I would add that as far as I know the only volumous and monumental (across the board) (A-Z) lepidopterous work similar in scope was Seitz; and that was all lepidopterists had available for about 45 years before d'Abrera's work....

[nomihoudai]

I am currently working on a complete website of Lycaenidae with illustrations for each species. There is 500 pages of names and references, of these 500 pages there is roughly 5 pages (116 names) of misspellings produced by d'Abrera, roughly 1,5 pages of synonyms (31 names) and roughly 1 page of available names (23 names). These are the numbers, my opinion is based on these and you can go figure out what I think about it. A whole percent, 1% of this work is just misspellings by d'Abrera, let that sink in for a moment. I am sorry to say that I do not accept the card index story. If you find out that the cards you are working with are not that great, stop using them.

[africaone]

Aug 6, 2015 7:44:44 GMT nomihoudai said:

I am currently working on a complete website of Lycaenidae with illustrations for each species. There is 500 pages of names and references, of these 500 pages there is roughly 5 pages (116 names) of misspellings produced by d'Abrera, roughly 1,5 pages of synonyms (31 names) and roughly 1 page of available names (23 names). These are the numbers, my opinion is based on these and you can go figure out what I think about it. A whole percent, 1% of this work is just misspellings by d'Abrera, let that sink in for a moment. I am sorry to say that I do not accept the card index story. If you find out that the cards you are working with are not that great, stop using them.

nothing to add about the cards and the untrue story to explain misspelling.
someones seem to forget what is commented here, the words of D'Abrera that is searching excuses for his misspellings, unable to assume them (nobody forced him to use unreliable references, I imagine of how happy must be the trustees of the NHM). Nobody says that his work is not enormous and useful for amateurs. Just saying that it is not scientific, reliable and precise, that's all. Someones have also to read comments made by Bernard against people who helped him in the past. He never stopped to say that comments against him were made by jealousy as he never understood that science has his own method including objective critics.
About the fact that he used nearly exclusively NHM collection, I have no problem with that except the title of his work that should be "catalogue of the BHM collection"

[Adam Cotton]

I was asked by Bernard d'Abrera to post his explanation of the reasons for errors (maybe not all of them) in his books, since it should be of interest to readers. I do NOT want to get involved in arguments about what he asked me to post, since they are not my opinions, but those of d'Abrera.

If you want to check whether or not the NHM card index does indeed contain spelling errors you can check for yourselves here:
www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/research/projects/lepindex/index.html
If you search for a taxon name you will be able to view the card(s) for that taxon (search for the erroneous spelling as well as the correct one).

However, from a nomenclatorial point of view, any spelling errors published in d'Abrera's works that had not been previously published elsewhere must be considered as incorrect subsequent spellings (ISS) attributable to d'Abrera for the purposes of synonymic lists. I know that there are also at least a few ISSs attributed to d'Abrera by Bridges that were not actually published in d'Abrera's books. Those names are attributable to Bridges even if he thought otherwise.

Adam.

[nomad]

One thing that I must add about d' Abrera World butterfly books, is that they have given countless lepidopterists the World over the chance to see a extraordinary range of species and specimens that, if it were not for his publications, they would never had the chance to see. and that includes me !!

[trehopr1]

Nomad, I too shared your above sentiments when I mentioned 2 posts above that his series of books have allowed others a glimpse of some of the wonders locked up and away from all but accredited "researchers" and those with unique contacts.

[nomad]

It is not easy to get into the BMNH to view the World collection. If you are really interested and are persistent you will get in. However, they only have one or two curators and they get a lot of enquiries. They are really only interested in serious researchers. There are a small group of people that do get open access to the collections and these are trusted people, that they feel may add to the museum's knowledge. When access was more open before the current regime they lost specimens, some people mistreated their trust and purloined them for there own selfish greed . That is why today, they are very careful who they let in. Do not expect to get a tour around the World collections, you have to state what you wish to study. On my only visit I got five of their magnificent Delias drawers for the whole day. 

That is why I stated that the books by Bernard' d Abrera are of a great use to the general lepidopterist and the average collector. Sure there may be mistakes but show me a publication where there are none. You will never ever get the perfect book. The Specialists like to change, especially the genus names, and also elevate subspecies with rapid frequency. I guess it shows the depth of their study but sometimes it is so frustrating and more to the point really annoying to the average lepidopterist. Who knows who is right and who is wrong, just publish in a journal and that's it.

Since however, most of us live in a free society without the fear of a knock at the door, published works should be open to criticism. If you do not like something or disagree with what's in a book, you should have the right to say so without any fear of any retribution. Constructed criticism should and could be most helpful and should never be on a personal level. As the great Miriam Rothschild said, people that study entomology are gentlewomen and gentlemen. She certainly belonged to the former .