138 



groups occupy 32 drawers of large size. The arrangement of 

 the other groups will be continued during the year. 



The Shurtleff Bequest consists of between five and six 

 thousand pinned insects from the United States and mostly 

 from Massachusetts, a small collection of Chinese and Japan- 

 ese species, over 700 dry chrysalids and insect j^roducts, and 

 more than 2,000 insects in alcohol, many of them of earlier 

 stages of the insects. These, with the duplicates of the 

 Harris Collection are forming the basis of a New England 

 collection, to which the Curator has given as much time as 

 possible, though not so much as he desired owing to the 

 unusual amount of work laid upon him by his other official 

 duties in the Society during the past year. Now that an 

 orderly arrangement has been perfected in every part, he 

 hopes to give more time to it. He has, however, arranged 

 and displayed all of the Oilhoptera and diurnal Lepidoptera 

 of the collection belonging to New England, now contained, 

 in 17 boxes. The Society is much indebted to Messrs. F. G. 

 Sanborn and George D. Smith for the time and care they 

 have bestowed upon the Coleoptera ; these they examined 

 thoroughly, and will completely arrange. They have already, 

 in the course of the past six months, identified, labelled, trans- 

 ferred and arranged for exhibition nearly 1,000 specimens, 

 comprising over 400 species, and occupying 20 of the boxes 

 prepared for the j^urpose, which, with the other arranged por- 

 tions of the New England collection, have been displayed in 

 the railing-cases of the second gallery. This is the first 

 thorough arrangement of the Coleoptera attempted for years, 

 and the j^ains these gentlemen have been at in selecting 

 the specimens from the confused mass of good and bad, 

 and resetting many of those from Mr. Shurtleflf's collection 

 which had e\idently been the result of his earlier inexpe- 

 rienced collecting, as well as the taste and care displayed 

 in their arrangement, merit the warmest thanks of the So- 

 ciety. When the arrangement of the New England species 

 has been completed, they will follow out a similar plan 

 for the rest of this country, and, if time will permit them, for 

 the rest of the world. 



The cases to which the insects are allotted are unfit, in 



