1873.] 



SENATE— No. 252. 



25 



Boston, to form a biological set, an entomological herbarium, 

 to spread one-sixth of the butterflies in the collections of the 

 Museum, and to arrange a nursery for raising insects. Besides 

 a lot especially selected and raised in his room in glass jars 

 and boxes, he established in the Museum four closets filled 

 with dry leaves and branches of wood to raise insects con- 

 tained as larvae in these plants. The greater part of these 

 were taken with him to Europe, and he sent a short time ago 

 a written communication on the result. There are raised 

 Micro-Lepidoptera, 60 species in 300 specimens ; Macro-Lepi, 

 120 specimens ; Hymenoptera, 170 species. The Tineina are 

 scientifically described by Prof. H. Frey, in Zurich, and now 

 in the course of publication. Of course the long transfer from 

 Cambridge to Zurich of so delicate, living animals has been 

 injurious to a part of them, and if Mr. Boll had been able to 

 stay here the result would have been surely several times 

 greater for the number of species as well as specimens. 



I am glad to be able to state the very good condition of 

 the collection in the better closed boxes. For the first time, 

 upon a revision in the spring, in none of the boxes were 

 Museum pests to be seen. Newly arrived additions strongly 

 infested with Tribolium ferrugineum, a pest never before ob- 

 served in the Museum, have since given us hard work, and 

 even now are not entirely overcome. 



The curator's time was taken up for several months by the 

 rearrangement of a considerable part of the biological collec- 

 tion and the collection representing the transformation of the 

 insects. Especially the Lepidoptera, Neuroptera, Pseudo- 

 neuroptera, and the collection of North American galls, neces- 

 sitated an entirely new arrangement. 



The biological collections of the department have increased 

 rapidly in number and species in the last year, in consequence 

 of the plan adopted of representing the whole history of a 

 species in full (a jplan not yet carried out in any other 

 Museum upon such a comprehensive scale). The collection 

 now begins to form a very valuable part of the whole depart- 

 ment. Even the non-entomological visitors of the Museum, 

 formerly attracted in a special manner by the beauty of the 

 butterflies, begin to show a decided preference for those parts 

 of the collection; and, in fact, frequently additions more or 

 4 



