450 MR. T. A. DYMES ON THE 
Summary of Section LII. 
Donisthorpea nigra.—While there can be no doubt that this species. 
disperses the single seeds when it comes across them, my evidence does not 
show that it disintegrates the mass, and I provided it with fresh as well as 
with stale ones. We have, however, the fact that when sufficiently close to 
an entrance-hole it can and does take the unbroken mass into the nest. 
Myrmica levinodis, on the other hand, while behaving in the same way as 
regards the single seeds and the fragments, will break up a bulky mass, and, 
in comparison with Donisthorpea nigra, it gets it into the nest in considerably 
less time. 
Donisthorpea flava, the third ant, seems to be of little account or none at 
all so far as stale seeds and fragments are concerned. 
Section IV. Tue LARVAL “ MIMICRY.” 
Presumably no one would suggest that the resemblance to a larva attracts 
the molluses, and apparently it does not deceive the birds of my garden—at 
any rate, to an extent great enough to be of advantage to the species or to 
justify us in calling it adaptive so far as they are concerned. That, however, 
is by no means the same thing as saying that there are no birds anywhere to 
whom the mimicry appeals. A great deal of information and observation 
must be available before one can pronounce judgment on this point: we 
ought to know, for example, what larva or larvee the mass resembles, whether 
they occur at the right time and place and in sufficient abundance in the 
natural haunts of the Hellebore to be really familiar to the birds of those 
parts, and whether the resemblance is sufficiently close to lead to mistakes 
often enough for one to call the mimicry an adaptation. Hence а great deal 
of work will have to be dono to enable one to entertain an opinion worth 
expressing upon the interesting possibility of ornithochory. 
With regard to the ants, the question whether they are or are not deceived 
by the resemblance is of some importance for the sake of accuracy, and lest 
we put //elleborus jatidus into a wrong dispersal-group, although, of course, 
it would not be the only or even the most important point to consider, 
[t is notoriously difficult to prove а negative—to establish that the resem- 
blance, when it is there, does not deceive the ants ; but, on the other hand, 
the evidence seems to show that they are attracted all the same when it no 
longer exists, and that it is the elaiosome that is responsible. It is quite 
certain that at any rate some species go for the whole mass when it is old, 
stale, soil-stained, and of a uniform earth-colour—when, in other words, the 
resemblance has partly or completely disappeared, as far as human perception 
