66 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [March, 



NOTES ON EUROPEAN ENTOMOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS. 



By Philip P. Calvert, Ph.D. 



(See the News for January, 1896, vol. vii, p. 4.) 



II.— OXFORD. 



The entomological collections of the University of Oxford are 

 contained in a series of rooms on the second floor of the Univer- 

 sity Museum, which also accommodates the zoological collections 

 in general, the zoological laboratories and library. Prof Edward 

 B. Poulton, the present occupant of the Hope Professorship of 

 Zoology as successor to the late Prof J. O. Westwood, and 

 Curator of the Entomological Department, has kindly furnished 

 the following notes on the insects : 



"The foundation of the Oxford Collection is the Saunders' 

 Collection bought by the Rev. F. W. Hope and presented by 

 him with his other collections and a very complete library to the 

 University, together with the endowment of the Hope Chair and 

 a small endowment for keeping up the collections. Other im- 

 portant collections now in the Hope Department are tnose of 

 Miers and of Burchell ; all these three extend into all Insect 

 Orders, but the Coleoptera are probably the most complete. 

 There is also the Bell Collection of Crustacea, containing numer- 

 ous Bell types. In the Saunders' Collection are many thousand 

 Walker types; how great a number will not be known until the 

 collections have been carefully studied and each one marked 

 plainly. This we are doing as quickly as possible, but of course 

 it is a tremendous task. The Coleoptera are rich in Hope types. 

 All orders are rich in Westwood types, gradually described by 

 him during his long tenure of the chair and published in his 

 'Thesaurus,' ' Cabinet of Oriental Entomology,' ' Revisio Man- 

 tidarum,' etc. These, too, will require the same careful marking. 

 It is now a matter of investigation to make out the types when 

 any one desires to study them.* There are also some of the 

 types of Haworth's ' Lepidoptera Britannica.' Many of the ob- 



* I can personally testify to the truth of this remark of Prof. Poulton's. Mr. McLachlan 

 had told me of the existence, at Oxford, of Rambur's types of Odonata described from 

 the Marchal collection, and these I desired to see. Unfortunately, Prof. Pouiton was ab- 

 sent at the time of my visit, but his Assistant, although unable to give information con- 

 cerning them, very obligingly gave me full access to the cabinets, and, after some search, 

 guided by a peculiar style of label, and by the French handwriting, I found the specimens 

 in question. They agree with the information given by Rambur concerning the individ- 

 uals he described. 



