AugUHt, 1893.' 173 



THE LATE MR. STAINTON'S COLLECTIONS, &c. 



BY THE EIGHT HON. LORD WALSINGHAM, MA., P.R S., &c. 



Mrs. Stainton having, as already announced {ante p. Ill), gene- 

 rously presented to the Trustees of the British Museum the whole 

 of her late husband's collections of Lepidoptera, together with his 

 entomological correspondence and unpublished drawings illustrating 

 the \SiVV3d and life-histories of Micro-Lepidoptera, it may be interesting 

 to his many friends and correspondents among entomologists to know 

 that these are now accessible to students at the Natural History 

 Museum. 



The collections are contained in seven cabinets and numerous boxes, 

 the contents of the latter being for the most part duplicates or speci- 

 mens not coming within the range of his special studies. These boxes 

 liave been carefully examined, and a selection has been made of such 

 of their contents as may, at some future time, be usefully incorporated 

 with the existing National series ; these and others selected from among 

 miscellaneous and unarranged specimens have been placed for the 

 time in the empty drawers of a large cabinet containing a great 

 number of interesting European and exotic Tineidce, many of which 

 have been the subjects of Mr. Stainton's published contributions 

 to science. There was already in this cabinet much unnamed and 

 unarranged material received from various correspondents, among 

 whom may be mentioned Belfrage, who collected in Texas about 1870 ; 

 Bates, whose expedition to the Amazons yielded rich results ; Atkin- 

 son, who, in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, carefully observed the 

 life-histories of many species ; Petersen, from Colombia ; Trimen, from 

 the neighbourhood of Cape Town ; Eaton, from Portugal and the 

 south of France ; Hudson, from New Zealand ; and many others. There 

 are also many species received from Brackenridge Clemens at about 

 the time when Mr. Stainton edited the papers of that author in his 

 volume on the " Tinelna of North Amei'ica ;" with a considerable 

 number of named specimens from Chambers, Boll, and others, which 

 should be useful in the identification of insufficiently described and 

 never fully recognised North American Tineidce. The actual types 

 described by Mr. Stainton in his Indian, Australian and African papers 

 in the Transactions of the Entomological Society are also found in 

 good condition. 



It has been determined, after making an inventory, to keep the 

 contents of this cabinet for the present undisturbed, although it is 

 hoped that they may be incorporated from time to time in the future 



