94 f^P"^' 



manent resting-place, in which they will be accessible for study and 

 examination by all workers who may desire to consult them. Under 

 the will of the late Charles William Dale, the whole of the collec- 

 tions, as well as the entomological diaries and other records made by 

 his father and himself, are bequeathed to the Delegates of the 

 University Museum at Oxford, subject to the condition that they 

 shall be permanently kept separate under the name of the "Dale 

 Collections." 



The value of this generous bequest can scarcely be over- 

 estimated, as besides the personal and historical interest attached to 

 very many of the specimens, some of which have been handed down 

 from Haworth's and other classic collections, and the number of rare 

 and now extinct British species, and of fine and remarkable varieties 

 which they include, these collections formed the source whence Curtis 

 derived a great part of the material used in his splendidly illustrated 

 " British Entomology." They thus contain many of Curtis's '" types ;" 

 and others of his species, which may be more or less open to doubt, 

 may be verified by reference to the Dalean collections. The journals 

 and records, which are continuously carried on from 1808 — the first 

 definite date in J. C. Dale's "Entomological Calendar," May 2nd, 

 1808, recording the capture of " Pontia cardamines " at Enborne, 

 Berks — nearly up to the tinne of C. W. Dale's death early last year, 

 form an entomological narrative of very great interest and value. 

 The above-named MS. volume, indeed, takes us even further back in 

 time, as Dale's " Calendar " is preceded b}^ one on the same lines 

 compiled by him from the notes of the Kev. Charles Abbot, D.D., 

 F.L.S., one of the Masters of Bedford Grammar f-chool, in which 

 the earliest entry bears date May 8th, 1798. Thus we have consider- 

 ably over a hundred years of continuous entomological records 

 embodied in these volumes, in which the date and other particulars 

 of the capture, &c., of nearly every specimen in the collections has 

 been entered, and the exact history, of at least every important 

 insect, could be traced by its original possessors. It is, however, 

 much to be regretted that, at any rate in the case of Macro-Lepi- 

 doptera, a large number of specimens bear no label of any kind, and 

 thus they cannot be connected with the records with any degree of 

 certainty. 



Complete summaries of the species represented in the collections 

 were drawn up by C. W. Dale after the death of his father, a separate 

 volume being devoted to each of the larger Orders ; the particulars 

 relating to the Lepidoptera being entered in a copy of " The Lepi- 



