MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 23 



REPORT OX THE ENTOMOLOGICAL DEPARTMENT. 



By Nathan Banks. 



During the eight months the present Curator has been in 

 charge, much of his time has been spent in becoming acquainted 

 with the collection and its arrangement. The collection has been 

 examined for pests and fumigated where necessary. A consider- 

 able amount of material in Hvmenoptera and Hemiptera has been 

 pinned, and most of the unmounted Odonata are now pinned and 

 spread. The miscellaneous insects collected some years since by 

 Mr. A. P. Morse in the Southern States and in New England, 

 have been mounted, and much of Dr. Barbour's East Indian col- 

 lection has also been pinned. The Hvmenoptera, Diptera, and 

 Hemiptera in a number of miscellaneous collections have been 

 assorted and placed in the main collection. 



The Psammocharidae, Scoliidae, and Philanthidae have been 

 studied, and the new species described; the Psammocharidae of 

 Cornell University have been determined for the desirable dupli- 

 cates, and the collection of Prof. C. T. Brues in this family, kindly 

 presented to the Museum, has also been identified. 



In the Diptera the Asilidae have been partly studied and the 

 genera Dasyllis and Dioctria revised and the results published. 

 In the Neuroptera various species of Myrmeleonidae and Termi- 

 tidae have been examined. 



The accessions have been very large. The Curator's collections 

 contain fully 60,000 pinned insects and more than 60,000 xArach- 

 nida. This, with that already in the Museum, makes the Museum 

 collections in the Neuroptera and Arachnida more important than 

 the combined collections of these groups in this country. In the 

 Neuroptera the Curator's collection contains nearly 900 types, and 

 about as many in the Arachnida, with over two hundred addi- 

 tional types in other orders of insects. This collection materially 

 increases the Museum collection in Hvmenoptera, Diptera, and 

 Hemiptera. The Curator has collected a thousand or more speci- 

 mens in the vicinity of Lexington, Mass. 



Valuable donations of insects have been received from Messrs. 



