NOTES FROM THE SARAWAK MUSEUM. 261 



from their nearest allies ; and the same holds good when treating 

 with new families, ft is, of course, necessary when writing the 

 catalogue, to enter and number in order every species, genus and 

 family already recorded from the area in which the collections 

 are made, whether or no the collection undergoing cataloguing 

 contains all those species and genera ; if this is done, a double 

 advantage is secured — the dreaded interpolation is only needed 

 when new species or genera are discovered, and the catalogue 

 becomes a complete faunistic list of the collected-over area, and 

 the importance of such faunistic list is well-recognised by every 

 museum curator. My own method of interpolating new genera 

 into a previously catalogued series has been as follows : — The 

 new genus is numbered with a fractional number, the numerator 

 of such a fraction being the number of the nearest ally of the 

 new genus. The denominator the last two figures of the year 

 in which the new genus was described. For example, let us 

 imagine that a new genus closely allied to Hestia was discovered 

 this year. The number of genus Hestia in the Sarawak Museum 

 catalogue of Lepidoptera is He 1.1. The new genus would 

 consequently be numbered He ii- : the number is cumbersome 

 and somewhat destroys the symmetry of the series, but it is 

 significant, and that feature I have endeavoured to hold constant- 

 ly in view during my re-cataloguing labours. 



R H. Shelford. 



