Usually, Wolfe doesn't chase after his quarry with butterfly nets. He's part of a new generation of scientific collectors. He visits the museum's herbarium to study plants that butterflies eat and learn where they grow. At the right time of year, he will travel to those localities and collect butterfly eggs.

Then he goes through the painstaking efforts of raising them to adulthood. For some species, that takes six years.

"It's all very labor-intensive," he said.

Bills said Wolfe is donating time to catalog the details of his collection and will go through the museum's earlier collection to "help us update it and get it organized a little better."

Wolfe has provided detailed notes that will help scholars. They tell when and where the butterfly was collected, by whom (some are trades), at what stage of the insect's life it was gathered, what food plant it was found on, what food it was reared on, and when it emerged as an adult.

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