It is a great pleasure to observe that the Department tends 

 more and more to become a centre for all resident naturalists 

 who are specially interested in insects. 



Mr. Pogson Smith, M.A,, St. John's College, has continued 

 the identification and arrangement of the British Tineina. 

 Dr. F. A. Dixey has done a great deal of valuable work upon 

 the General Collection of Pierinae. The large accessions of 

 butterflies of this group, constantly received from many 

 parts of the world, especially the Ethiopian region, have 

 involved much extra labour because of the re-arrangement of 

 the older material which became necessary. As a result of 

 Dr. Dixey's patient researches and remarkable power in 

 using the materials of his investigations as a means for 

 elucidating the problems of evolution and unravelling the 

 tangled threads of phylogeny, the Oxford Collection of 

 Pierinae has become one which no serious student of the 

 group can afford to neglect. 



I again wish to express my thanks to the members of the 

 staff of the Insect Department of the British Museum of Natural 

 History, who have helped me in the study of many groups. 



The chief researches conducted in the Department during 

 1 90 1 have been concerned with the material presented by 

 Mr. Guy A. K. Marshall and Mr. R. Shelford, and the 

 Balearic insects, collected by Professor Poulton. References 

 to the publications will be found in the parts of the Report 

 dealing with these donations. 



Additions to the Collection in 1898 and 1899. 



The gifts which were uncatalogued at the publication of 

 the last Report remain in the same condition. The delay 

 has been in part due to the hope that further data may be 

 forthcoming, and in part to the advantage of printing the 

 donations of two or three years together in those cases in 

 which the same data are likely to be repeated frequently. 

 The immense labour required by the generous consignments 

 of R. Shelford, Esq., M.A., from Sarawak, Borneo, and by 

 the Siamese butterflies collected by Richard Evans, Esq., 



