Spielmann’s notes were in a kind of quasi-German patois–whether as a function of his haste, his terrible handwriting, or the fact that Yiddish was his first language, I couldn’t say.

He would describe the things he found on the islands using a kind of code: A-D for the island, X for animals, Y for plants, Z for fungi, and the word “specien” for multiple captures and “speci” for singles. In lieu of a description, he provided a basic sketch.

AXspecien6, for example, appeared to describe a curious asymmetrical walking stick insect, which had three legs on the left but only a single large leg on the right (and, if the scale was correct, was 6-7 inches in length!). Ordinarily I would have dismissed such a finding as a single aberrant individual, but Spielmann apparently cataloged dozens. He even included sketches of larger, brighter females, smaller, duller males, and nymphs which apparently shed their legs as they grew.