A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



of Liverpool and N. Greening of Warrington. It was rearranged some 

 years ago by Dr. Ellis of Liverpool, and the specimens being principally 

 of local origin and in admirable condition it forms probably one of 

 the best public collections of Lepidoptera in the provinces. In the 

 other orders Liverpool possesses a fairly representative but small col- 

 lection of exotic insects of the several orders. The British collections 

 other than Lepidoptera are in process of reformation and will probably 

 in course of time be worthy of the other excellent biological collections 

 of the Liverpool Museum. 



In the Owens College Museum of Manchester the insect collec- 

 tions are exceptionally good. This is particularly the case with the 

 Coleoptera and Hymenoptera. The fine and extensive collection of 

 exotic Lepidoptera presented by Mr. Schill of that town is also a note- 

 worthy feature of the museum. 1 



Bolton in the Chadwick Museum possesses excellent collections of 

 Lepidoptera and Coleoptera and good representative ones of Hymenop- 

 tera, Hemiptera and Diptera. In this museum also are the exotic 

 Coleoptera collected by the late Mr. Gray of Bolton and presented to 

 the museum. 



The Preston Museum contains one of the best generally representa- 

 tive entomological collections in the provinces. It has been formed to 

 illustrate the distribution of the Insecta of the world and includes Coleop- 

 tera, Orthoptera, Neuroptera, Hymenoptera, Hemiptera and Diptera. 

 Besides these there is a very good local collection of over 500 species 

 of Lancashire Lepidoptera and several cases illustrating life histories of 

 insects, mimicry, protective resemblance, etc. 



The Warrington Museum is of somewhat recent date, and the en- 

 tomological collections therein are to a great extent in process of form- 

 ation. The local Lepidoptera are already fairly representative and the 

 other orders have not been neglected. 



ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETIES 



At the present time there are two societies in Lancashire founded 

 for and exclusively devoted to the study of entomology. The elder of 

 these is the Entomological Society of Lancashire and Cheshire. 



This society was founded in 1877 by Messrs. S. J. Capper, Ben. 

 Cooke, and a few other local entomologists. The first president was 

 Mr. Capper, and he has worthily filled the chair ever since. The meet- 

 ings were held in the Liverpool Museum till about 1901, when a 

 removal was made to the Royal Institution, Colquitt Street, in that 

 city, and periodical meetings during the session are now held at Chester 

 and St. Helens. This society has done much to encourage the study 

 of entomological science throughout the district, and has numbered 

 amongst its members all the local entomologists of the last thirty years. 



Recently a somewhat similar society has been founded in Man- 



1 The very complete and valuable collection of British Coleoptera formed by W. Reston of Stretford, 

 Manchester, has lately been acquired by this museum. 



1 06 



