This is a guest post for the Library News Blog written by Museum Archives intern Molly Treangen.
It’s 10 p.m. on a humid August night on South Bimini Island, Bahamas in 1951. Patricia Vaurie gradually proceeds down a sandy path, surrounded by a chorus of cicadas and swishing tradewinds. She’s trailed by her husband Charles, a fellow AMNH volunteer and temporary resident of the Museum’s Lerner Marine Laboratory on the island. Pat and Charlie, as they’re known by friends and colleagues, are in their third hour of scanning their headlamps over each twig, leaf, palm frond and tree trunk in search of insects. Some are easily caught with a swoop of the net; some – especially the quick-flying ones – require more complicated methods like hand-plucking from the opposite sides of fence posts or jabbing small branches to shake off beetles into waiting nets. They’re accompanied by small lizards fast asleep on twigs and boa constrictors shifting through the vegetation. At 11 p.m. the pair turns back for camp, where a large white sheet is pinned down by two Coleman lamps. They chase off a couple of fifteen-inch land crabs who have occupied the sheet in their absence to feast on would-be collections. Pat and Charlie will repeat this routine almost every night for four months. Their efforts will eventually yield a sum total of nearly 110,000 specimens collected on the expedition, including 26 families of beetles never before recorded in the region.
This scene is only a small sample of what is detailed in the article “Insect Collecting in the Bimini Island Group, Bahama Islands,” which was written by Pat and appeared in the Museum novitates in 1952. It is one of the 77 scientific publications to her name. As mentioned in the Research Library’s previous blog post, Pat often enlisted the illustrative help of Marjorie Statham Favreau, whose art is featured in the “What’s In A Name?” exhibit in the new Gottesman Research Library and Learning Center. The Library’s ongoing work with an archival collection from the early years (1920s to ’60s) of the AMNH entomology department reveals more about Pat’s colorful career and her contributions to the Museum.
Pat came to the Department of Insects and Spiders – currently the Division of Invertebrate Zoology – as a volunteer during WWII. Her husband Charlie, a Manhattan dentist, also signed up to volunteer, albeit to pursue his interest in birds. Charlie was promoted to Assistant Curator of Ornithology in 1955 and retired as Curator Emeritus in 1972, while Pat worked under the title of Research Associate from 1957 up until her death in 1982, when she submitted her last paper only a few days before her passing. Charlie was lucky enough to tag along on Pat’s multiple entomological expeditions spanning North America, Central America and the West Indies, at times serving as photographer or collecting assistant. They often competed in how many specimens each could scrounge a day; according to Pat’s correspondence from such trips, she credited Charlie with an unnatural talent for snagging insects. Where he bested her in the quantity collected, Pat kept track of possible new discoveries by sending sketches of specimens to her colleagues back at the Museum and theorizing their place in the taxonomic hierarchy while still in the field.
A beetle enthusiast, Pat collaborated and helped secure multiple grants with Mont Cazier, a Coleopterist (a person who studies beetles) and Chair of the entomology department from 1946 to 1960. Much of their work focused on tiger beetles, which Cazier is quoted as claiming “are perhaps the most intelligent of all insects and must be stalked in much the same manner as wild animals.” Not only stealthy, tiger beetles are also known for their carnivorous diet and array of iridescent colors. They can be found on display at the new Insectarium in the Gilder Center among the other members of the order Coleoptera. A number of specimens identified by Pat are present in the Division of Invertebrate Zoology’s research collections and can be viewed in their Specimen Database.
Held in high regard by her colleagues for her meticulous and well-executed work, Pat had no formal scientific degree, having graduated from Barnard College in 1931 as an English major. It’s no surprise that her literary skills shone through her scientific publications, which revised and described members of the order Coleoptera as well as documented expeditions. Here Pat describes the sounds of an average collection night, taken from a closing paragraph in “Insect Collecting on the Bimini Island Group” (Patricia Vaurie, 1952):
“The most insistent and ever-present night sound on South Bimini was the whine of the mosquitoes. Next came the "click-click" of hidden land crabs as they nibbled on dead leaves. At times cicadas buzzed on the sheets and scarabs whirred noisily. Once in a long while a frog croaked, and only once, after a rain, there was a brief frog chorus. Occasionally a loud squawk from a disturbed night heron pierced the air, and at 9:30 every night an airplane flew quite low overhead. Often strong gusts of wind rustled the palmetto fronds, and when the wind was from the west we could hear the drone of the waves on the shore. At 11 P.M. the ever-louder throb of the motor boat called us to the beach for the ride back to Bimini.”
From Pat’s humble beginnings as a volunteer to her long-held position as a Research Associate, she made valuable contributions to the Museum and the field of entomology. With continued work in the AMNH archives, getting to know people like Pat can enrich the historical context of the Division of Invertebrate Zoology and the Museum’s commitment to science as a whole.
