[TN-Butterflies] Re: numbering the streaks of the tulip
- From: Stephen Stedman <SStedman@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: tn-butterflies@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:51:26 -0600
My commentary from earlier today, let me hasten to say, was not in any
way directed at the current effort to develop a Tennessee moth listserv
to operate in parallel with the Tennessee butterfly listserv. I believe
it is probably time for a listserv dedicated to Tennessee moths to be
initiated, and I plan to become one of the first subscribers to this new
listserv when it appears.
If we have these two related but distinct listservs available, all
persons who have really interesting material about leps in general can
always send messages to both listservs to be sure that everyone
interested gets to see this material. But for those whose interests are
more focused on one group of leps than the other, the option of not
having to sort through material that is outside the scope of one's
interest is a good one to make available.
There have been some defections from TN-Butterflies already because of
the amount of material that this listserv has generated (I think Ken
Childs can confirm this); some folks just don't have time or willingness
to process it all and have gone away. Creating a moth listserv might
ease the processing burden enough to keep more folks on one or the other
of the two listservs.
Thanks, Larry McDaniel, for your willingness to create TN-Moths; I look
forward to this new listserv and to many years of exciting discoveries
of the moth kind in my home county and around the state.
Steve Stedman
Cookeville (Putnam County)
From: tn-butterflies-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:tn-butterflies-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Steve Stedman
Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 7:13 AM
To: tn-butterflies@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [TN-Butterflies] numbering the streaks on the tulip
The umbrella that this listserv covers, I would like to think, is a
large one, with room for many different subjects relating to
butterflies, even, for the past year, room for many different subjects
relating to moths. To suggest that there is a purpose for this listserv
that does not provide for all-inclusiveness of subject matter is to open
a door to a place where we perhaps do not want to go, so I would
respectfully request that those who are in the process of opening that
door should reconsider what it is that they are doing and let the door
stay shut.
The recent thread dealing with the morphs of the Common Buckeye and the
environmental factors that contribute to the production of individuals
of the various morphs was informative, and I am more than a little glad
that this thread was begun by Harold Howell and followed up so well by
others. However, I imagine among our readers there might be some for
whom this information was not of great interest, who, to paraphrase Dr.
Johnson, did not find delight in this form of "numbering the streaks on
the tulip," but it is a credit to all such individuals that they did not
take it upon themselves to voice snippy recriminations about the
presence of this thread in the listserv because it did not meet their
narrowly focused idea of what the purpose of a listserv should be.
Let's all take a lesson from Geoffrey Chaucer who recommended to the
readers of his Canterbury Tales that, if they didn't like the subject of
one of his tales, they should simply turn to another page (i.e., hit the
delete button).
Good butterfly counting, Steve Stedman
Cookeville (Putnam County)
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