THE MUSEUM. 
37 
An amusing paragraph has been going the rounds of the newspapers for some 
time, to the effect that the subject of this sketch was a day-laborer—an ordinary 
stone-cutter. Mr. Strecker is an architect, designer and sculptor by profession—an 
artist of remarkable talent. By night has been accomplished all the enormous labor 
and correspondence required to form his collection, as well as the writing of his works 
and drawing and lithographing the numerous plates which illustrate them. It is by 
rigid systematizing that he has accomplished so much ; no time is lost; every minute 
must count. Arising at 6 A. M., he is at his business an hour later ; at 1.30 he dines ; 
from 2 to 6 p. M., again at pencil or chisel ; then come the evening and night hours, 
which, up to midnight, are devoted to his favorite science; then supper, followed by 
a pipe or segar, and a half hour’s reading of a primer or a tract, a newspaper or a 
novel, or anything else un-scientific. He retires at about 12.30, for the night, this 
having been the routine for over a quarter of a century. 
It is well worth a visit to Reading to examine his magnificent collection. It con¬ 
tains over seventy thousand examples, gathered from every corner of the globe. Every 
climate, every country, every altitude has contributed its hundreds of curious and 
beautiful examples of winged life. Among the great rarities is a specimen of Cotias 
Boothii , taken by the second Ross expedition in search of a northwest passage, in 
1827-29. This is the only example of that species in any American collection. 
There are also three of the great Papilio Antimachus, from equatorial Africa, of which 
only about a dozen are known. Then there is the argus moth ( Eustera argus ), with 
enormously long, slender, tail-like attachments to the hind wings ; whole suites of the 
splendid golden Croesus and Lydius butterflies, from Halmeheira ; the curious dead- 
leaf butterfly ( Kallimaparaleckta ), from China and India ; the wonderful Parnassius 
butterflies, from 15,000-18,000 feet elevation in the Himalayas and other great 
mountain ranges ; enormous Cossus, from Australia, which are eaten by the natives ; 
the owl moth of Brazil, measuring a foot across the wings ; the resplendent Rhipheus 
flies, from Madagascar, which have no rival in nature to their beauty—the brilliancy 
of the humming-bird, the glitter of gems fading in comparison with them. There 
are also monsters, half male and half female, or those with one wing partly of one 
sex and the rest of the other; there are albinos, melanos, hybrids, monsters with an 
extra wing ; every imaginable variety or freak. There are butterflies that look like 
wasps, like bees, like lichens ; moths with peculiar markings resembling skulls, anchors 
and the figures 88. There are examples collected by trained collectors in every 
quarter of the world, by Indians, by Esquimaux, by explorers and travelers, by 
Jesuit missionaries, by any and every one whose services could be enlisted. 
This truly wonderful collection is the result of more than thirty years’ study and 
systematic collecting. Mr. Strecker has been, during this time, in intimate commu¬ 
nication with every lepidopterist of note in the world. For some specimens he has 
paid as much as fifty dollars each. Being endowed with great artistic talent, he 
has published many valuable works describing new species, etc., illustrated by finely- 
executed lithographs engraved by himself, and in many cases colored in a life-like 
