37 



A Few Weeks in Italy. 



By G. W. KiRKALDYj F.E.S. Read December iiih, 1902. 



Being in very poor health, mentally and physically, last May, I 

 was so fortunate as to obtain five or six weeks' holiday and a 

 passage in a cargo-boat, the run taking ten days. A cargo-boat has 

 the advantage of having no other passengers and of not being so 

 speedy as a liner, thus ensuring a few more days of sea breezes. 

 The coast of Northern Africa, comparatively so close, inspired a 

 lively desire to entomologise there, but it was not to be, my cruise 

 ending at Genoa. 



As will be apparent, I did little entomological investigation during 

 my holiday, though when at Naples I spent two days in the vicinity 

 of Vesuvius, riding and climbing to the summit by the wrong and 

 much more toilsome path, owing to the rascality of my guide. The 

 geological and classical interest of the environs is very great, and I 

 wandered as far on the one hand as Pozzuoli, with the Lithodomits 

 — perforated columns of the Temple of Jupiter Serapis (now 

 generally declared to be merely a bathing establishment), and on 

 the other Castellamare and Pompeii. I have, however, prepared the 

 following notes in the hope that they may be of some little interest 

 to any British entomologist who proposes visiting Italy, showing him 

 in what towns and cities he may find entomological centres and a 

 warm welcome from genial confreres. 



Although there are a number of zealous and competent entomo- 

 logical workers in Italy, they are greatly scattered, and, so far as I 

 was able to judge, entomology is not a popular pastime as in more 

 northern latitudes ; in many places a sweep-net and water-net had 

 never been seen before, and their use was considered problematical. 



At Genoa, naturally, my first visit was to the Civic Museum of 

 Natural History, charmingly situated at the summit of the pretty 

 Villetta di Negro, a part of the Acquasola Park. The museum is 

 small, but the entomological collections, at least in Coleoptera and 

 Rhynchota, are well represented in forms from Burma, New Guinea, 

 etc., while Ferrari's collection of paL'earctic Rhynchota is preserved 

 here. The "Annals," of which over forty volumes are now com- 

 pleted, hold a high position for their scientific value. I had the 

 pleasure of making the personal acquaintance of the Vice-director, 

 Dr. Rafaele Gestro, so well known for his coleopterological labours. 

 I had known Dr. Gestro previously by correspondence, for the 

 Genoan, like most Continental and unlike most British scientific 

 .museums, communicates its treasures freely for work among students, 



