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Comparative Zoology at Cambridge, and the National Museum at Wash- 

 ington, 



In many Stales there are colleges and other institutions having col- 

 lections, but in the rarest instances have they a competent person in 

 charge, and the usual fate of the collection, after the retirement of the 

 pei-son making it, is dust ami decay. I know several such collections. 



The collection in Cornell University at Ithaca, N. Y., is a shining 

 exception. Here Prof. Comstock is, by earnest and persistent labor 

 gelling together a good collection, deter nined by >pecialisls in each order. 

 Prof. Comstock has original ideas on Museums, and his block s\stem for 

 cabinet boxes, and the bent neck vials have been ilc^cribed and figured 

 by him. Whether Prof Comstock's successor will appreciate and carry 

 out his work is of course another question. 



The Boston Society of Natural Histt)ry has a general colleciion of 

 considerable extent, but no special curator of insects. Mr. Henshaw, 

 the present curaior of invertebrate Zoology, is fortunately an Entomo- 

 logist, and able to appreciate the valuable material now in the Museum. 



The American Museum of Natural History has allowed onet\pical 

 collection to go to ruin in the most unwarrantable manner, and has al- 

 lowed individuals to handle the material whose knowledge of the subject 

 was such that they took off the labels on the few still existent types of 

 Robinson's Tortricidae, and thus destioyed the value of the imperfect 

 remnants of what was once a valuable collection of Lepidopiera. The 

 treatment of other orders and collections was not more enlightened. They 

 have just ajipointed a curator at a very small salarv and have not as yet 

 shown any disposition to give him any facilities for w'ork. 



In Missouri, 60 drawers prepared for the State by Prof. Riley con- 

 taining a large lot of Biological material of value was allowed to go to 

 ruin by simple neglect. 



The American Entomological Society has a large collection of Insects 

 owned by it, or on deposit, but no salaried officer to take care of it. So 

 much intelligent care has however been accorded the collection that there 

 has been little loss. In Coleoptera, the Wilt collection has given them a 

 large material in addition to the large lot of species previously on hand. 



In Lepidoptera there is a large amount of material well determined 

 by Grote and others, typical of many of the older described species. 

 There are also many of the types of Clemens' Micros. 



In Hymenoptera the Cresson collection is on deposit, and they have 

 also a very fair lot of species in some other orders. Altogether there is a 

 fair nucleus for a collection, needing only a competent salaried curator 

 to develop and increase it. The insects are in large cabinet drawers, 

 cork-lined. 



