PREEACGE 
Ture Hope Department is not likely to contribute 
largely to the preparation for examinations which is at 
present the most conspicuous function of the University 
and Colleges of Oxford. It is hoped that public lectures, 
delivered from time to time, may act as some incentive 
towards the study of natural history, and that, out of 
the numerous subjects of the Final Honour School in 
Animal Morphology, those few which can be appropriately 
illustrated from the Hope Collections, may be usefully 
expounded in short courses. 
The chief duty of the Department must always be 
the care and the proper arrangement and display of the 
vast collection of insects of all orders which we owe in 
the first place to the munificence of the Rev. Frederick 
William Hope. From the discharge of this duty, if it 
is to be discharged adequately, results must follow which, 
it is claimed, give to the Department a meaning and 
significance in the life of our ancient University. In the 
present state of Zoological Science, it is impossible to make 
use of existing knowledge in the careful study of a large 
amount of material without adding to that knowledge. 
Research after the various kinds of knowledge which have 
been prized by mankind during successive ages was of 
old the prominent function of the University; and 
although obscured during the recent generations by 
