AND COLLEGE, PUSA, FOR 1915-16 73 



and 1,422 issued, but all these numbers are exclusive of a 

 large amount of routine correspondence. As the activities 

 of the Section become better known, the correspondence 

 becomes more and more onerous and takes up more time 

 which should be devoted to more productive work. 



VIII. Insect Survey. 



Steady progress has been made in additions to, and 

 arrangement of, the collection. The whole of the collection 

 of Lepidoptera has been overhauled, rearranged and placed 

 in one series, so that all the information on any species or 

 group is now available in one place. The same is being 

 done with the Coleoptera, which are nearly finished, and 

 other groups will be taken up as time and staff permit. 

 Work of this sort takes time and care, but is necessary as, 

 in the not infrequent case of non-identification or misidenti- 

 fication of an insect at the time of its collection or occur- 

 rence as a pest, the specimen itself forms the only evidence 

 of its identity and if it is hidden away, out of the series, as 

 a " duplicate " or " non-identifiable," valuable information 

 may easily be overlooked. 



The collections continue in good order but the difficulty 

 of maintaining them, in boxes in open racks in a climate 

 such as that of Pusa, is very great. 



The following collections were sent out to Specialists in 

 the groups named and our thanks are due to them for the 

 help afforded : — 



(i) Micro-Lepidoptera to Mr. E. Meyrick, F.R.S., 

 to whom special thanks are due for his examina- 

 tion of the whole of our unnamed material, of 

 which about forty per cent, proved to be new to 

 Science. The novelties are under description 

 in " Exotic Microlepidoptera." A Memoir on 

 life-histories of Indian Microlepidoptera, com- 

 prising all the information published hitherto 

 together with a mass of new material now 

 rendered available by the identifications receiv- 

 ed, is now in preparation. 



