82 Letter from Mr. Grote on Mr. Atkinson's Collections. [March, 



London, January 31s^. 

 Mt dear Wateehouse, — The question on wliicli I told you last week 

 that I should address your Society's Council concerns the publication of the 

 novelties which have been found in our late friend Atkinson's Cabinet of 

 Lepido^tera, The entire collection has gone to Germany, having been pur- 

 chased by Standinger of Dresden, who has, however, left with Moore of the 

 Indian Museum a selection of novelties among the Nocturnals, with a view 

 to their being named and described. The comparatively few novelties 

 among the Diurnals have fallen into Hewitson's hands and some of these 

 have already been described in the Entomologist's Monthly Magazine for 

 December. 



Moore tells me that he finds some 650 sjDecies of Nocturnals for de- 

 scri2)tion thus : 



Bombyces, 200 



Noctuse, , 200 



Geometridae, 200 



Pyralidse, 50 



on the first of these groups he is already engaged, but it will take him some 

 time to work out so many new species. The India Office catalogues having 

 been for a time suspended he has asked me whether your Society would 

 undertake to publish his descriptions as a memorial of your late Secretary. 

 He estimates the cost of such a publication at about £142, which includes 

 that of 8 plates uncoloured. Moore, who edited the Horsfield official cata- 

 logues and is well up in Indian entomology, offers his editorial labours gratis. 

 I too offer my assistance in seeing the work through the press, and will 

 endeavour to find materials for a short notice of Atkinson's scientific career 

 and of his publications in the Zoological Society's Proceedings, to form an 

 introduction such as I contributed to your Extra number for Blyth's Bur- 

 mah catalogues. I have rather regretted that the labours of such a zealous 

 collector of Indian Lepidoptera should appear to be overlooked by the 

 Society which he so long served. Doubtless many of his discoveries would 

 have been long ago made known through the Society's Journal if he had 

 more leisure and fuller access to the figures of already described species. 

 It is still open to the Council by accepting Moore's offer to secure for the 

 Society and for Atkinson's Memorial the credit of first making his discover- 

 ies known to the entomological world. 



