SCJ/-:.VCEGOSSJJ'. 



379 



Akkivai. oe- Swai.i.ows. The lirsl swalluw I 

 have olisfrvfd ihis season «as on Kastur Monday, 

 April i6lh. This was in a Chine to ihc west of 

 Hourneinoiith, when- it was hawkinj; in llie shelter of 

 pines that frint;cil the win(hvaril side of the narrow 

 valley. - /nines Suitiickis, .t.L.S., I.iitoii. 



Tub Stevens CoLLKCTioN ok Lei'idoptbra. — 

 Hy the dispersal, at the well-known auction rooms in 

 King Street, Covent Ciarileii, on March 27 and 28, 

 of the first and principal portion of the collection of 

 British I.epidoptera formed liy the late Mr. Samuel 

 Stevens, a collection of son\e historical importance 

 ha.s ceased to cNist. Mr. Stevens was one of the fast 

 disappearing Irand of lepidopterists w hose experiences 

 dated liack to those times when the " great copper" 

 hulterfly was still occurring in the I'.ast Anglian 

 Kens, and could l>c purchased for one shilling and its 

 larvae for sixpence each : at that time /.ailia tivnoin 

 III), and Noiliiii suhrosfii .St. were common if local. 

 Then, too, the gipsy moth (Oineria dispar. Il-S. ) 

 was truly I'ritish, and to he found in full pro- 

 portions in every collection. At that period 

 the metropolitan collectors worked in Hammer- 

 smith marshes and other fine localities close to 

 London that long since hecame the prey of 

 the specidative Imihler. Neither had the seaside 

 hunting grounds licen invaded l)y cheaj) trippers, 

 golfers, and campers-out. Many were the quaint 

 stories of expeditions of those days, told by .Samuel 

 .Stevens : how he and I'Mward Newman collected 

 in the flower-strewn an<l willow-bordered meadows of 

 Deptford. No wonder then that the .Stevens col- 

 lection ct)ntained many tine varieties as well as rare 

 species. During his long life's interest in buttertlies 

 and moths, Samuel .Stevens regularly attended the 

 sales at the auction r«tonis with which he was at one 

 time as.sociated, as mentioned in our oliiluary notice 

 [ante, p. 161), so that he had many opportunities of 

 obtaining rare or historic specimens at prices flir lower 

 than now obtain. .Vmong these were some from 

 Haworth's and other old masters' cabinets. Latterly, 

 however, some specimens were purchased with less 

 of that sound judgment than formerly, which was 

 unfortunate, as doubtful authenticity is a great 

 detriment to any collection. The butterflies in the 

 Stevens cabinets comprised 117 lots for auction, and 

 produced a total ofj^27i. The principal prices were 

 a Pieris daplidiic taken by himself at Dover in 1872, 

 ^l. A specimen of Co/ias ediisa, exhibiting left side 

 male and right side female, £1 los. A fine rayed 

 and suffused variety of Arjryinn's pafihia, £},, and 

 two other aberrations of the same species. ^4 10s. 

 and £2 los. respectively. ./. at^lia var. ihar/olla, 

 £^ 5s. A silvery variety of A. adifpc, £6 l6s. 6d. , 

 •ind other varieties of this frilillary reached /^J los. , 

 £3 5s., and £i. A particularly fine form of A- eii- 

 phrosy»e,£(>, .ind others from tjje some series, £^ lOs, , 

 £2 5s. I laworth's var. los of Miltliiiii a/halia pro- 

 duced £6 IDs., though liaworth's var. dielynna of 

 that species only reached _^2. .\ specimen of pea- 

 cock butterfly with " blind eyes," ^5, and a remark- 



able variety i>l the .VdmirnI butterfly {I'aiiti'ii 

 .ilaltiiitti), £^ lOs. Twii alierrations of the painted- 

 lady butterfly ( /'. laidiii), £(3 lOf. and £%. Light 

 forms of Meliinnrge f;iilalett and Epiiiepheir lilhoiiin 

 Z7, £S '"""' £i "*•■ \"=< specimen. The fourteen 

 "large coppers" (Polyoniiiialiis diipnr) averaged 

 nearly £^ 5s. each, the highest price being j^8 for 

 one specimen ; this Iwing with one e.YCcption the 

 highest price ever reached for one of t hese now extinct 

 butterflies. A golden var. of the small copper was 

 sold for £^, and a silver form ^4. There wa.s small 

 demand for .Sphingidae and low price-., neither dirl 

 the Bombyces reach their value. The Nocluac made 

 bad prices excepting Notliia siibrosea, at alwut £t, 10s. 

 each. The two days' sale of all the niacro-lepidopiera 

 realised ^^625, by no means the highest price reached 

 for a collection of this section of lepidoplera, espe- 

 cially (!onsidering some specimens had historic value. 



I'RESTWICll CoLLEtllON OK FLINT ImI'LK- 

 MENTS.- This collection is now available for inspec- 

 tion by the general public who visit our noble 

 geological collection at the Natural History Museum 

 at Kensington. The exhibits embrace the imple- 

 ments collected by Sir Joseph I'restwich in the 

 .Somme Valley in 1859, when the discoveries by 

 .M. Boucher de Perthes of the occurrence of flint 

 implements with the remains of extinct mammalia 

 were, after ten years, beginning t(j attract scientific 

 attention. The present writer has two photographs, 

 authenticated with the avUograph Joseph I'restwich, 

 of the first implement >een by him /// silit, in un- 

 disturbed river graxel near Amiens. lie used to tell 

 of the ditliculty, in those days of wet-pl.atc photo- 

 graphy, of getting a photographer to undertake the 

 work at a reasonalile rale. Rut he succeeded in that, 

 as in everything else to which he put his energetic 

 hand. There are also his implements from Norfolk, 

 Suffolk, and Kent, nillected about the same time as 

 those of the Somme N'alley. In these matters I'rest- 

 wich was no armchair geologist (vide " Life and 

 Letters of Sir Joseph I'restwich," pp. 160, 162, 

 165, etc.), but visited for critical examination the 

 sections where flint implements occurred. The 

 fine type collection of Eolithic implements con- 

 tributed by Mr. B. Harrison and others, illustrat- 

 ing Dr. I'restwich's paper on " .Some Controverted 

 Questions." are in a long case in the same 

 room near at hand. As I.aily Prestwich says, 

 in the "Life" (p. 356), "To the last I'restwich 

 persistently maintained his belief in the rude plateau 

 implements as being the handiwork of man, and not 

 mere natural flints. " Dr. Prestwich. when speaking 

 to the present writer on the long and bitter opposition 

 which greeted the palaeolithic tools from the Somme 

 Valley and elsewhere, and the long years it took to 

 establish their position as hmnan h.andiwork, often 

 said (hat he was not surprised at the same treatment 

 being meted out to the eolithic specimens of the chalk 

 plateau of Kent and other localities ; and he was 

 just as certain of the acceptance of the latter as man's 

 handiwork as he had been of the former in 1859. 

 There, at all events, his specimens stand, worthily 

 housed in our great national collection, the only regret 

 that must be felt by all her friends being that his 

 indefatigable helper, L,-idy Prestwich, did not live to 

 see her wish fullilled. Suitably, loo, the .South 

 African eoliths described at the Anthropological 

 Institute in April i8gS, by Professor Kupert Jones, 

 K. R..S., are added to the Prestwich Collection, a 

 juxtaposition which will be useful to serious students 

 of praeCilacial man. — (/'«'.) /'. Ash:n:;ion Bii/len, 

 F.L.S., F.G.S., March 1900. 



