THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 195 



faction that they have known so good a representative of the purer quali- 

 ties of humanity." 



THE MELSHEIMER COLLECTION. 



As stated before, Dr. Melsheimer, when 82 years old, sold in 1864 

 his collection to Prof L. Agassiz, who also bought at the same time Rev. 

 Ziegler's collection. Dr. Melsheimer had preserved, as LeConte states, 

 the only authentic types of many of Mr. Say's species for later investi- 

 gators. Prof L. Agassiz has told me that he had invited LeConte to take 

 over into his collection all types and species out of both collections which 

 he needed for his studies ; these have been returned to the Museum now 

 with LeConte's collection. In his letter which promised the donation of 

 his collection to the Museum, (Ann. Rep. of the Museum for 1875, p. 35) 

 LeConte says : " My collection contains specimens carefully compared 

 with those described by Say, Harris, Melsheimer, Haldeman and Ziegler, 

 and ail the iinique types of the three last named authors." 



The Melsheimer collection filled 41 home-made wooden boxes, painted 

 outside with light gray color. They are 103^ by 14 inches, and 2 inches 

 high. Inside lined with white glazed paper ; the bottom of the apparently 

 older ones of plain wood, the newer ones lined with Helianthus pith. 

 The cover is a board with the margins around planed off half an inch, to 

 trim into the box. The beetles were arranged on transversal lines parallel 

 to the smaller side of the box. On those lines were pasted the printed 

 labels of the genera and species cut off from the catalogue published in 

 1853. The labels of the exotic species were written on colored paper and 

 also pasted in. By this arrangement, after the publication of his cata- 

 logue, he had removed nearly all labels from the pins, also those of his 

 father. Only exceptionally some labels of Say and some foreign authors 

 were retained. Indeed the old beetles of his father are to be recognized 

 by short common pins, and the beetles of Dr. Melsheimer by German 

 pins from Carlsbad, a little shorter than those now used. I am often 

 able to recognize in LeConte's collection the specimens taken out of the 

 Melsheimer collection. 



The contents of the collection are taken from the receiving book of 

 the Entomological Department of the Museum, recorded with scrupulous 

 accuracy by Mr. Ph. R. Uhler (Ann. Report of the Museum for 1864, 



P- 35) ■■— 



"The collection was received Sept. i, 1864; bought for $150. It 



