84 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS [Mar., '19 



Notes and News. 



ENTOMOLOGICAL GLEANINGS FROM ALL QUARTERS 

 OF THE GLOBE. 



An Appeal From Belgium. 



The follawing- letter has been received from the Curator of the 

 Entomological Section of the Royal Museum of Natural History of 

 Belgium : 



[Translation] 



Brussels, 11-I-1919. 

 Dear Sir : 



It is absolutely necessary that you write some notices in the Ameri- 

 can scientific journals in order to save the Selys Catalogue. I have 

 lost tv^enty subscriptions in Europe and I must retrieve them in the 

 United States. Financial aid from the de Selys family is impossible 

 for a long time. Each new subscription will bring a little capital to 

 the reconstitution of this work which can be brought to a termination 

 with a little energy* and with the aid of all. The great institutions, 

 libraries, etc., ought to put some of their pennies into subscriptions. 



Here we have suffered much from the slow and inexorable hunger, 

 from the nervous depression of our abominable slavery that no one 

 can describe. Our museum and our collections are saved, but I have 

 lost one of my two sons who was at the front, a fine boy of 24 years, 

 a captain of engineers. I have lost a part of my small fortune and my 

 health, but more I fear that the sufferings from hunger have comprom- 

 ised the future of my younger son and of my grandchildren. 



The balance sheet is sad and I have little courage to take it up. I 

 would not, however, see the Catalogue, to which I have devoted myself 

 for years, founder. This is why I call for your aid. Write to your 

 entomological friends and sustain me. 



Yours sorrowfully, 



G. SEVERIN. 



IMie Baron Edmond de Selys Longchamps (1813-1900) was known 

 as the chief authority on the taxonomy and geographical distribution 

 of the Odonata. He formed an extensive collection of these insects and 

 of other "neuropteroids" from all parts of the world, and of the 

 vertebrates and some other groups of Europe. These collections were 

 presented after his death to the Brussels Museum by his two sons. 



The publication of the Catalogue Systematiqiie et Dcscriptif des Col- 

 lections 7.oologiques du Baron Edm. de Selys Longchamps, "designed 

 to realize the supreme desire of their late possessor and at the same 

 time to serve science," was begun in 1906 under the care of the two 

 sons, M. Severin and a number of zoologists, who undertook, as special- 

 ists, the preparation of certain parts thereof. 



