180 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



I am assured that it would have been impossible to keep these 

 great historic collections separate and entire, and while my 

 whole entomological soul cries out against their absorption into 

 this Nirvana, where all their individuality is lost, I realize that 

 it is too late for any remedy to be possible. Even granting the 

 necessity for their disruption, and gratefully admitting that the 

 original labels are never removed, one might still have hoped 

 that no specimen would be omitted from the general collection 

 which might possibly have any special historic interest or value, 

 and that to those, whether excluded or included, whose correct 

 place was doubtful (as in the case, for example, of unusual 

 aberrations), an extra label might have been attached, stating 

 under what species the previous owner had placed it. Whilst 

 regretting that neither of these hopes is justified by facts, I must 

 emphatically repudiate any suggestion that I am casting any 

 reflection whatever on the present Curator of the Ehopalocera, 

 whose kindness to me during my long hours of work at the 

 Museum has been unfailing, and who, I know, regrets these 

 omissions, for which he is no way responsible, as much as I do. 

 Frey's specimen, which is not hritomartis at all according to 

 Assmann's description, was in the general collection, but Zeller's 

 I could not find. Mr. Heron, however, kindly produced the 

 drawers of excluded specimens, and there I instantly found it, 

 so that this, in all probability the only co-type of the species 

 to be found in England (or, for aught I know, elsewhere), is now 

 restored to a place in the general collection, with the outlines of 

 its history attached to it, as well as Zeller's own label, and its 

 date and locality (Klarenkranst) pencilled probably by Assmann 

 himself. The specimen is unfortunately a female, and therefore, 

 as is usual in this group, less definitely marked than the average 

 male would be ; still, it serves as a standard of comparison, and 

 cannot, in my opinion, be included, in the face of Assmann's 

 and Eiihl's descriptions, either under the head of aurelia or of 

 dictijnna. 



In the latter part of July, 1904, I was hunting at Reazzino, 

 between Bellinzona and Locarno, for Heteropterus morpheus, 

 in consequence of Mr. Fison's re-discovery of that insect in 

 this locality the previous year (after a lapse of nearly fifty 

 years since it had been recorded in Switzerland), when on the 

 '25th of the month I came across a Melitcea flying in some 

 numbers in the marshy ground just beyond the quarries, which 

 differed from any others with which I had a personal acquaint- 

 ance. Most of the specimens were very small, ranging from the 

 size of the aurelia of the Rhone Valley to that of asteria ; the 

 under sides resembled dictynna, but were more heavily marked on 

 the fore wing ; the upper sides varied greatly, some approaching 

 aurelia, others athalia, whilst two specimens, a male and a 

 female, were not more heavily marked than parthenie. At the 



