354 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



EDITORIAL GLEANINGS. 



We have received the Annual Eeport of the Indian Museum for the 

 year 1903-1904. In the Natural History section we read that " The 

 most momentous event of the past year has been the receipt from the 

 Government of India of a grant of five lakhs of rupees for the general 

 improvement of the museum : among other things the grant provides 

 for the purchase of land for, and the construction of, much-needed 

 outhouses and conveniences for museum servants." 

 , The following paragraph is of more than purely Indian interest : — 

 " Among other radical proposals that have disturbed the Zoological 

 Section is that of the Director of the British Museum (Natural 

 History) that all the Indian Museum 'types' should be transferred to 

 the great central institution under his charge. It is the opinion of 

 the authorities of the British Museum — an opinion which in itself is 

 most reasonable — that the climate of Calcutta is inimical to that 

 enduring preservation which ' types ' demand, that the isolated situa- 

 tion of Calcutta renders our ' types ' as objects of reference almost 

 useless, and that therefore the interests of science would, in every way, 

 be advanced by the transfer of the ' types ' to the chief working centre 

 of the British Empire. The Trustees, however, so far as the types 

 received from the Asiatic Society go, were debarred from agreeing to 

 the proposal, and, outside their obligations to the Asiatic Society, 

 were disinclined to consent to it, for fear of handicapping workers in 

 India." 



In the Seventeenth Annual Report of the Delegates of the Uni- 

 versity Museum (Oxford) for 1904, we read in the statement of the 

 Hope Professor of Zoology that an important acquisition to the entomo- 

 logical collection has been acquired in the splendid collection of Oriental 

 Hymenoptera, containing large numbers of types, bequeathed to the 

 Department by Mr. G. A. James Piothney, F.E.S., together with his 

 fine British collection of the same order, the manuscript notebooks 

 relating to the collections, and the parts of his library dealing with 

 this group of insects. 



We quite agree with the remark that "when the Rothney Collection 



