THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S WEEKLY INTELLIGENCEIL 
167 
I Isis whose veil could never be raised with 
I impunity ! 
I The now united libraries of Westwood 
' and Hope form at the present day uu- 
j doubtedly the richest library specially 
devoted to Entomology, since it, without 
j any speciality, includes equally all orders. 
Its richness in separate publications of 
English, French and extra-European 
works is especially striking. 
1 The library, however, is especially rich 
j in magnificent works and rare editions, 
f and possesses one entomological jewel, — 
namely, the original plates for the first 
illustrated entomological work which ap- 
peared (in 1692), the ‘ Archetypa Insect- 
! orum ’ of Hoefnagel. The work was 
I 
formerly in the possession of D’Israeli, 
and it would be interesting if its history 
could be ascertained. 
The result of my stay at Oxford, for 
my bibliographical purposes, was very 
considerable, but I must admit that the 
abundance of materials I found there far 
exceeded my working power. 
With regard to the entomological col- 
lections at Oxford, I have only looked 
through the Neuroptera somewhat care- 
fully. They contain an extraordinary 
number of species new to me, and are 
especially rich in Odonata. The collec- 
tion possesses all the types which Ram- 
bur described out of Marchal’s collec- 
tion. 
I take this opportunity of observing 
that the types of a collection which, at 
the end of the last century, was one of 
the most celebrated on the Continent (that 
of Leske), according to a notice in Oken’s 
‘Isis,’ 1821 (liter. Anzeige, p. 339), must 
occur in the museum of the Dublin So- 
ciety. The Museum Leskeanum is de- 
scribed by Zschach in a special work, and 
contains not a few new species (named by 
Gmelin in the thirteenth edition of the 
‘Systema Naturae’). It would be inte- 
resting to learn what yet remains of this 
collection. 
The collection in the Oxford Museum 
naturally contains all Westwood’s types, 
at least so far as they were described 
from species in his own collection. 
I was especially interested in some 
specimens of insects in amber from 
Catania. A thorough investigation of 
the Fauna of the Sicilian amber is im- 
peratively required by Science, in order, 
by a comparison of it with the Fauna of 
the amber of Eastern Prussia, to form a 
conclusion as to the identity or difference 
of these amber formations. The Fauna 
of the amber of East Prussia is now 
tolerably well known for Orthoptera, 
Neuroptera, Hemiptera and Diptera. 
For that of the Sicilian amber we 
possess at the present day only the 
figures of Maravigna, in Guerin’s 
‘ Revue Zoologiqne,’ 1838, which repre- 
sent beetles, several ants, and Diptera, 
but furnish no sufficient ground for a 
comparison. I was therefore extremely 
delighted to find in Hope’s collection 
three specimens of amber with Termites, 
namely, two specimens with the winged 
imago, and one with workers. One is a 
large species, referable to the genus Ter- 
mes, Hagen, which is decidedly new and 
quite distinct from the five species found 
in the amber of East Prussia. The second, 
a smaller species, is not distinctly visible, 
and, in order to its thorough investiga- 
tion, the specimen must be judiciously 
cut afresh : this is the more necessary, 
as it is of extreme scientific interest to 
establish firmly the distinctness of this 
species from the Termes antiquus of 
Germar, so abundant in the amber of 
East Prussia. The third specimen, con- 
taining workers, is extremely interesting. 
Out of the 150 amber Termites which 
