Examples of Actinoptychus sp. from Oamaru, New Zealand. Slides prepared by William Henry Barrow. No dates, or details on the mountant used, but they were quite low contrast. Nicely prepared slides with a range of species present. I think two of them are A. maculatus, but I have no idea as to the third one. Olympus BHB microscope using 450nm LED light. 63x Leitz Pl Apo NA 1.40 objective, oil immersion. Olympus Aplanat Achromat condenser, oil immersion, brightfield lighting. 2.5x Nikon CF PL photoeyepiece. Monochrome converted Nikon d850 camera. Stacks prepared in Zerene (Pmax).
Not much seems to be known about William Henry Barrow and he does not appear in Bracegirdle’s book on Mounts and Mounters. He was a member of the Postal Microscopical Society between 1910 and 1917 and he lived in Leicester. He was a Professor of Music, Church of England Organist and Teacher of Music. He had an interest in beetles and “he first appears in the reports of the entomology section of the Leicestershire Literary and Philosophical Society in 1902 when he ‘gave a fine exhibition of microscope slides illustrating various points in the anatomy of the order Coleoptera’ and remained active in the county until 1945.” as mentioned on the UK Beetle Recording site. It seems he also made a few fine diatom strews, as these two are well prepared slides.