2 
it is hoped may be supplied by this extension of the Univer- 
sity Collections. 
The butterfly fauna of the Chilian and Patagonian Andes 
is equally interesting. There, cut off from the northern land- 
belt by the whole width of the tropics, is an assemblage of 
species almost wholly northern, and strongly northern, in 
affinity. This is not the case in Tasmania, the mountains of 
Natal or of the Cape Peninsula. It may well be that the 
explanation is to be found in the north and south trend of the 
great ranges of the New World as compared with their east 
and west trend in the Old. Thus a highway, or at least 
stepping-stones, may have been provided for the journey 
of northern forms across the American tropics, while the 
inducement to set out may have been given by the push 
of the advancing ice of the Glacial Period. Such hypotheses, 
suggested bya glance at these collections, become the stimulus 
for further investigation :—for example, in the study of this 
particular problem, the attempt to discover how far isolated 
northern communities still linger at great heights in favoured 
spots scattered through the Andes within the tropics. 
Assistance in working out the material in the Department. 
Commander Walker has worked in the Hope Department 
nearly every day since he first came to reside here in May of 
last year, on his retirement from active service. He has 
helped in the kindest manner in a great variety of pieces of 
work—in naming and arranging the fine collection of butterflies 
from Macao, presented by Mr. J. C. Kershaw, from Siam by 
Dy Richard» Evans; D.Sc.; M.A.; Jesus Collese;-and the 
Burchell Collections of British Lepidoptera and Coleoptera. 
The latter specimens he not only determined but restored with 
such skill that, after nearly 100 years and at times very severe 
treatment, the great majority are converted into excellent 
specimens. 
Among the other Orders in Burchell’s British Collection the 
Diptera have been determined by Col. J. W. Yerbury, Mr. 
