Recent Acquisitions at the Natural History Museum

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AMONG recent additions to the Zoological Department at the British Museum (Natural History) is a specimen of the pigmy scalytail of West Africa received from the Basle Museum. The Department has also acquired a large number of small mammals and birds from Yugoslavia collected by Mr. V. Martino. This collection, comprising a number of new forms, is of considerable scientific importance and will help to fill one of the chief gaps in the study collections of mammals and birds. An important purchase for the Department of Entomology is the remainder of the Fruhstorfer collection of butterflies. 13,799 specimens, comprising the Lycsenidse and Hesperiidse, were purchased by the Trustees in 1933, and a small section of the collection (the oriental Nymphalidse) have in the interval been sold to the Paris Museum. The balance now acquired. consists of 48,677 specimens, of which about 3,000 are the actual specimens upon which the original descriptions of the species were based. The Mineral Department has been given by Mr. J. D. Hague a specimen of native gold in beautiful bright crystals, from the North Star mine, California. Mr. Felix F. Wilson has presented a small collection of gold which has been picked up from burns at Leadhills, in Lanarkshire, by the late Mr. Thomas Newbiggin, who was for many years engaged in mining there. A magnificent, clear blue, step-cut, flawless blue topaz, 614 carats in weight, from Brazil has been bought. Owing to the easy cleavage of this mineral, it is seldom that a coloured stone of this size is so free from flaws.