xli 



I cannot quit the subject of Entomology in our own country 

 without some notice of the hibours of one of our practical Ento- 

 mologists, who has much distinguished himself during the 

 year as a collector in distant countries ; for it is to the class of 

 Entomological travellers that we are chief!}' indebted for the rapid 

 growth of our knowledge of insect forms throughout the world. 

 Mr. Buckley, who appeared before us at oui* last Meeting to exliibit 

 a portion of his collection, was about a year and a half ago com- 

 missioned by Mr. Hewitson to "sisit the eastern slopes of the Andes 

 of Ecuador, chiefly to collect Diui'nal Lepidoptera, and returned, 

 after an absence of only foui'teen months, with a collection of 5000 

 specimens in an excellent state of preservation, and including 135, or 

 according to a freer estimation 150, new species. The discovery of 

 so much novelty, and many of the species are ver}^ strildngly 

 different from anything we had before seen, in a limited district, 

 is of scientific interest, inasmuch as it shows how cautious we ought 

 to be in our estimate of the number of species actually existing in 

 nature, and in our comparisons of the faunas of different regions. 

 The time, moreover, in which the collection was made is stated by 

 Mr. Buckley to be only about two and a half months, so many 

 weeks being lost by constant rains, and of course several months 

 occupied by the journey there and back. The route which he 

 followed was, after landing at Guayaquil, across the Western 

 Cordillera by the foot of Chimborazo, to the city of Biobamba, 

 thence by the lofty Andean road to Bancs on the Upper Pastaza, 

 and down the slopes of the Eastern Cordillera, following the valley 

 of the river and the path which leads off to Canelos on the Bobo- 

 naza, which river he explored to Sarayacu, and then worked 

 through the difficult forest-paths to the banks of the Napo and 

 back. The Andes here do not sink abruptly into the great plain of 

 the Amazons as they do in Middle Peru, further south, but form 

 a succession of mountain-ridges, each of several thousand feet of 

 elevation, lying more or less parallel to the main Cordillera. 

 Through each of the deep valleys thus formed between the ranges 

 flows a river, and it would appear that each valle}^ contains a great 

 amount of species peculiar to itself, for many of the most striking 

 species in the collection are described by Mr. Buckley as being seen 

 in one valley only. The difficult forest track in descending from 

 . Banos in an easterly direction crosses the valleys and intervening 

 ranges successivelv, and the ascent of some of the latter is described 



