The changing uses of a scientific instrument: Leon Provancher's entomological collection

Jean-François Auger
Université Louis-Pasteur, Strasbourg

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     Last modified: April 21, 2005
     Presentation date: 07/15/2005 4:00 PM in MACK 237
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Abstract
Session title : "Scientific Instruments in Natural History: The Case of Insect Collections"

At the end of the nineteenth century, the French Canadian naturalist and priest, Leon Provancher, built insect collections containing more than one thousand previously unknown species of hymenoptera. Still in existence today, the collections are used by biologists for research in ecology. In this paper, I explain how these collections have been used throughout their history. Provancher built insect collections according to his fixist and anti-evolutionist beliefs. Furthermore, he contributed to zoological systematic by keeping type specimens that he described in the journal Le naturaliste canadien. Hereafter, these personal collections were used for research in economic entomology by the Department of Agriculture, and for teaching natural history at the College of Levis and the Museum of Public Instruction. In 1933 the two Provancher collections owned by the government were brought together in the Provincial Museum. The collections were reorganised by the curator according to the new international standard code in entomology, and type specimens were put into separate drawers. In 1962, Provancher’s collections at the Museum were transferred to Laval University. Since then, the collections have been used for the study of zoological systematics, for training students in master and doctoral degrees, and for research in ecology according to the most recent theories of evolution. In the conclusion, I discuss the implication of considering collections as scientific instruments to discover the major trends in the history of entomology.

Multiple Paper Session:
Other papers in this session:
Rothschild’s Insect Collection: Moving from Private to Public Spaces
Collecting Entomological Knowledge: Miss Balfour, the 'Specialists', and East Lothian Butterflies, 1910-1930