302 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST 



and which are closed by glass tops which set down inside, without 

 any overlapping flange. A careful examination of the Hymen- 

 optera proved that they were free from pests and in good condition. 

 At the time of our visit the Hymenoptera of the 1877 collection 

 were in museum case 35, and those of the second collection in the 

 left hand column of case 46 and, two drawers in the left hand column 

 of case 49. 



That Provancher had no concrete idea of the value of types 

 is shown by the fact that in no case (with possibly a few exceptions 

 in later years) were his types labeled as such. Furthermore, it is 

 apparent that when he discovered one of his species to be a syno- 

 nym he often removed the name label from the type and pinned 

 the specimen among others of the species to which he thought it 

 belonged. In other instances, upon deciding that one of his 

 species was synonymous with another not already represented in 

 his collection he removed the original name label and replaced it 

 with what We considered to be the correct one. For example, 

 there is no specimen in his collections labeled Selandria flavicornis. 

 After describing this species Provancher concluded that it was 

 the same as Selandria halcyon, and an examination of the catalogue 

 shows under 60 the name Selandria flavicornis with the word 

 ''flavicornis'' crossed out and above it written the word ''halcyon.'' 

 It, therefore, appears certain that the type of Selandria flavicornis 

 stands in the collection under the name Selandria halcyon. In 

 this case this is also proven by the fact that Provancher instead of 

 supplying a new label just reversed the old label and wrote the 

 name Selandria halcyon so that we find on the underside of the 

 label for 5'. halcyon the original label for Selandria flavicornis. 

 This one case is sufficient to show how Provancher worked. Many 

 other similar cases could be mentioned. There are many cases, 

 however, where there is no proof, either in the catalogue or in the 

 labeling, that the types of some of Provancher's species which 

 were later suppressed by him stand under the name of the species 

 with which he considered them to be synonymous. In such cases 

 we can only assume, from' our knowledge of Provancher's methods, 

 that this is what has taken place. 



At no time while studying the collection did we remove any 

 labels, and we were always very careful to put the specimens 



