8 Department of Zoology. 



1856-1861. Assistants and of the outside experts who had been engaged by 

 Dr. Gray, the various divisions were about this time in an orderly 

 state of arrangement, as shown by the series of catalogues 

 published by the Trustees. The whole of the Coleoptera 

 and Ortltoptera were generally arranged, and of many of the 

 families Catalogues were published. The Bymenoptera were 



F. Smith's speciality, and received his constant authoritative atten- 

 tion. The Ehopalocera had been arranged by E. Doubleday and 



G. R. Gray, the Heterocera by F. Walker* (1853-66), the British 

 species by J. F. Stephens and H. T. Stainton, the Neuroptera 

 and Diptera by Walker (1848-55), the Rhyncltota by Walker and 

 W. S. Dallas. The Aptera received no attention after Henry 

 Denny's original collection of British Anoplura had been acquired 

 in 1852. 



10. As regards the remainder of invertebrate animals study- 

 series systematically arranged were non-existent. Some very 

 important materials had been acquired as occasion offered, fore- 

 most among them the specimens described by Dr. G. Johnston 

 in his " British Zoophytes." Other remarkable specimens of 

 corals and sponges were sporadically described by Dr. Gray. 

 He had also contemplated working systematically through at 

 least the British species of Echini and Sponges, but the attempt 

 was abandoned by him as early as 1848. And finally the 

 acquisition of a series of Entozoa from Prof. C. T. von Siebold 

 led to the publication of a Catalogue of Intestinal Worms, to 

 which, however, only a certain ephemeral interest was attached. 

 The specimens, preserved in spirit, have much deteriorated. 



* Walker's work has been severely criticised by many competent 

 specialists, and it must be admitted that some of it is not creditable to 

 the institution. He worked in a purely mechanical fashion, without grasp 

 of the subject or principles of classification ; he noted the most superficial 

 characters, using some of them for specific, and the more conspicuous for 

 generic distinctions ; the obvious consequence of this method ot work was 

 that he not rarely described the same insect under two or more different 

 names. His earlier work, however, is much more reliable than that of 

 later years when his eyesight began to fail. Although Dr. Gray had 

 become aware of the imperfections of Walker's work, he continued to 

 employ him during the whole time of his Keepership, as the mass of 

 materials were reduced at least to some sort of order, Walker being an 

 indefatigable worker, who, in fact, could not be replaced. Moreover, I 

 have heard entomologists who were collecting and working abroad give 

 their unqualified praise to Walker's catalogues as the only available guide 

 to which they could look for assistance in their own studies. 



