VI REPORT OF MUSEUM WORK 



REPORT ON MUSEUM WORK. 

 1915-1916. 



As stated in the report of last year, "the Hancock Museum 

 has had its worl<ings disturbed to a certain extent by the 

 war." This has been intensified this year by the absence 

 of the Curator, Mr. E. Leonard Gill, who is engaged in 

 ambulance work in France, and by the illness and subsequent 

 death of Mr. Wm. Voutt, the late Caretaker. The presence 

 of various departments of Armstrong College has practically 

 confined our attentions to the main rooms, but though, 

 excepting the fish collection, little progress has been made 

 as far as public exhibitions are concerned, a considerable 

 amount of work has been done upon the reference collections ; 

 the progressive work has also been affected by the strong 

 necessity for economy. 



Following the arrangements of the last two years, the 

 report is given under various headings. 



Fishes. 



A few fishes have been cast this year — one or two varieties 

 of trout, chub, cat-fish, etc. — but the main work in this section 

 has been in arranging the cases. As many new casts had to 

 be worked into the collection, we took the opportunity of 

 emptying the cases and repainting the backgrounds. The 

 collection is now practically completed, the Salmonidae in- 

 cluding the "Life History of the Salmon"' being particularly 

 pleasing. At the beginning of the year we obtained a new 

 set of type and many new fish labels have been printed, 

 which, from the point of view of legibility and neatness, are 

 a great improvement on the old. 



Butterflies and Moths. 



It was mentioned in the last report that we had got together 

 a number of exotic moths, some of which had been purchased, 

 in order to continue the series of Lepidoptera. The butterflies 

 were of course well represented by means of Dr. Eltringham's 

 collection. We have been able to arrange four cases of moths 

 for public exhibition, and the whole forms u very fnie series. 



