7 
Hamm during the year has been first supplying printed labels 
of locality, date, and specific determination to the extensive 
series of British Diptera presented by Colonel J. W. Yerbury, 
and then arranging these with the accessions of earlier years 
in the order of Mr. Verrall’s list of British Diptera. The 
collection thus arranged occupies 45 drawers in one of the old 
but excellent Standish cabinets. It is a great satisfaction to 
know that the material in this important but difficult and 
insufficiently studied Order is in a condition to afford assistance 
to the student. With this extensive piece of work and with 
the large amount of printing, cataloguing, and manipulation 
required by other accessions, Mr. Hamm has had but little 
time to devote to the older part of the collection, with the 
exception of the Burchell specimens, which have received 
considerable attention. He was, however, able to give part 
of a few weeks to the resetting of a portion of the Nymphaline 
butterflies in the general collection. 
Southern Butterfly Faunas. 
The development of the collections described below is not 
entirely new, for the Wollaston Canarian and Madeiran 
beetles, &c., have always been kept apart. It is hoped ultimately 
to create these collections for other special localities, principally 
islands, and to include other Orders as well as the Lepidoptera 
and Coleoptera. 
The kindness of Commander Walker in presenting to the 
Department a fine series of insects from New Zealand and 
temperate South America, together with a favourable oppor- 
tunity of acquiring a number of Lepidoptera from the 
Patagonian Andes, made it possible to form the nucleus of 
two special collections of butterflies, possessing remarkable 
interest in relation to the problems of geographical distribu- 
tion. The great importance of such collections is at once 
realized when it is remembered that the instructive lacunae 
in the fauna are thus displayed at a glance. Omitting three 
probable stragglers, Anosta archippus, Hypolimnas bolina, and 
