4 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [January, 



NOTES ON EUROPEAN ENTOMOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS. 



By Philip P. Calvert. 



XL— MILAN. 



The Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Milano, in a new build- 

 ing in the Public Gardens of that city, has for Director Prof. 

 Tito Vignoli; the Section of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy 

 is in charge of Prof Angelo Andres. Prof. Ferdinando Sordelli, 

 Assistant in Entomology, has kindly supplied some notes on the 

 collection of insects: 



The Museum, founded in 1838, and whose nucleus was the 

 collections of Prof Georges Jan and of Joseph De Cristofori, a 

 Milanese nobleman, was opened to the public for the first time 

 .in September, 1844. Among these collections was also one of 

 Insects of all orders, especially rich in Coleoptera. At this epoch, 

 Jan and De Cristofori were in exchange with many entomologists 

 and their collections had acquired thereby a certain importance. 

 Having become the property of the city, the care demanded by 

 the other collections of the Museum, especially those of recent 

 and fossil Vertebrata, and the insufficiency of the personnel, 

 which one deplores even at this day, did not permit of the ex- 

 tension of the entomological collection, although it has been en- 

 riched by those of Abb6 Marietti, of Galeazzi, and by a part of 

 that of the brothers Villa. A numerous series of Coleoptera 

 and a small selection of genera of the other orders were exposed 

 to public view. At present, since the Museum has been installed 

 in its new edifice, owing to lack of space, no part of the collec- 

 tion is accessible to the general visitor. 



The insects are all preserved in boxes with glass tops, filling a 

 dozen cabinets ; the papered bottom of each box rests upon 

 sorghum pith, or more rarely upon cork. The specimens, of 

 which the greater part is still in quite good condition, are almost 

 all determined, but the progress of Entomology during the last 

 half century leaves much to be desired in the way of new studies 

 and of fresh material. 



With the exception of some manuscript catalogues, very few 

 documents bearing on the collection exist. A catalogue of Co- 

 leoptera was published in 1832 by Prof. Jan under the title 

 " Catalogus in IV Sectiones divisus rerum naturalium in Museo 



