File:HalidayCollectionNMI (3).jpg

English: Technical photo taken with Exacta Varex Alexander Hennry Haliday Collection National Museum of Ireland. Mainly Diptera mounted on long triangles of card transfixed by pins of German manufacture The specimens are disordered and very few have collection data.

This photo is of an original box. Substantial parts were incorporated into the Museum’s general collections mainly by J. N. Halbert and these insect specimens are are in much better condition.

In 1882, Trinity College, Dublin, presented the Museum of Science and Art .(now the National Museum) with 78 boxes containing the entomological collection of Haliday. A memorandum prepared by W. F. de V. Kane on 1st March, 1883, is of considerable interest. We quote it in part only “This collection when it came into the possession of the Museum of Science and Art had greatly suffered by damp and the depradations of insects. The contents of more than one box had been entirely destroyed and many others were in such a condition that the specimens were past identification” So what had happened to the collection prior to its arrival in the Museum? Haliday’s correspondence provides some clues as to neglect and disarray. In a letter to J. C. Dale dated 28 August, 1841, Haliday says “I am become quite a stranger to my own cabinet and as liable to make mistakes as -‘ a stranger would be and unfortunately many of my specimens are so huddled together for want of room that the labels are easily misapplied”. The same sad situation is reflected in two further letters to Dale, the first dated 23rd October, 1846, the second undated. “I am almost disheartened about collecting them (Diptera) this place (Ireland) is so poor and I have lost so many of mine by neglect they are so fragile and tempting to devourers”. “In a small way I am sorry I cannot call my collection “indigesta moles”. The smaller Tipulidae in particular have been so agreeable to my old friends the Psoci that this department is pretty welt digested by this time - to my vexation when I ;had occasion to refer to these on account of Rondani’s questions and Loew’s remarks” In a letter to H. Loew from Lucca, Italy, dated 5th March, 1867, he remarks “During the last three years I was not able to give any attention to the preservation of my collection which had to undergo two removals of domicile without my superintendence to the packing and transport and I find they have suffered largely by mould and Anthreni. I have made a selection of the best that remained at the end of 1863 - the types of several new genera of Chalcididae and other Hymenoptera with some Diptera. But the business which occupied me in Dublin for months consequent on my mother’s death left me no time to make use of these there and I brought them back to Italy in April 1864 in good condition. Unfortunately the loss subsequently fell upon these in especially the boxes I had left unarranged having been severely visited by the enemies named. Consequently I have lost many of my generic types which shall be, lucky if I succeed in replacing hereafter supposing I am able to follow the chase again”. Most if not all the collection was removed to Italy in 1861 when Haliday’s failing health forced a move to that country. It should be remarked here that in the later ears of his life Haliday suffered severely from nervous dyspepsia and probably from the lung complaints which had racked his family. It is evident from the above that Haliday revisited Ireland at least once from Italy and that at least part of the collection was also transported. Despite Haliday’s remarks concerning the replacement of types, we have no evidence that he did so. The italics in the letter to Loew are ours. After Haliday’s death his friend Percival Wright appears to have acquired the collection and it was held in his rooms at Trinity College prior to his transferring it to the Museum (Graham, pers. comm.). Thus some twelve years elapsed before it was presented to the Museum presumably during that time lying largely neglected.

Box 3 of S Smithsonian Institution Archive Microfilm copy in Reel 4 General contains

Folder 5 Notes and correspondence on the Haliday Collection, 1882. Correspondence from W. F. De Vismes Kane, John Steele, and E. Percival Wright to Westwood concerning the disposition of the collection after Haliday's death; and notes and drawings, mostly by Westwood.