Page:Midland naturalist (IA midlandnaturalis01lond).pdf/32

and differed in same other minor respects from the normal conditions of the species.

In the evenings after our day's work was done, the examination and comparison of our captures afforded great interest to the members; and Mr. Marshall, Professor Keeping, and Mr. Chas. Pumphrey were indefatigable with their microscopes, and exhibited and explained peculiarities of structure and potted out analogies and affinities.

Such of the specimens as were not required were returned to the sea, and the remainder were put up in spirits and preserved, as a nucleus for our museum.

If, as seems probable, another excursion is organised during this year, it would be desirable, for those interested, to give in their names soon to Mr. John Morley, the Hon. Sec. of the Society, Sherborne Road, Birmingham, so that a meeting may be held in the early spring, and plans determined accordingly. If it is possible to arrange for a week in the month of June, or not later than the first week in July, opportunities would be afforded for the examination of many most interesting forms of marine life in the larval condition, not to he found in the autumn, it is suggested, that if a small steam launch could be chartered for a week, much time would be saved. and dredging might be attempted in deeper water than hitherto. In fact, more work could be done, and it would be done in a better manner. A trawl similar to that which Sir Wyville Thomson states proved so serviceable in the Challenger Expedition might be used as well as the dredge and the towing net. Some shore collecting might also he undertaken with advantage.

The Lepidoptera of the Midland district have not hitherto received the same amount of attention which has been bestowed upon the same class in other parts of England. It is true that some of the greatest names among practical entomologists are to he found among the midland collectors. The name of the Rev. Joseph Greene must always command respect as that of the great authority on, and almost inventor of, pupa-digging, while another brother of the cloth, the Rev. H. H. Crewe, stands unrivalled in his practical knowledge of the puzzling genus Eupithecia. And another midland naturalist, Mr. Edwin Brown, of Burton, whose collections have lately been dispersed in consequence of his lamented death, stood equally high with either of the above named for general acquaintance not only with the Lepidoptera, but with Coleoptera, Diptera, and indeed almost every family of the multitudinous race of insects. It is not then, for want of able and experienced collectors that this district falls below some other, as for example the London, New Forest, and Devonshire districts, from the Lepidopterist’s point of view.

Nor again is it for want of sufficient material to work upon, the midland counties include, indeed, many purely manufacturing neighbourhoods, where it is hardly to be expected that Lepidoptera should flourish, (though, for the matter of that, one enthusiastic collector pursues his avocations with great success with a very short distance of the Staffordshire Potteries;)