PROOF BY BREEDING 261 



will be showing the Pseudacraeas with special intent to 

 prove their conspecificity by the intermediate forms." 



This egg, whose development is fully recorded else- 

 where, ^ with descriptions of the larva at different stages 

 (which I dubbed " Toby," feeling that he was important 

 enough to deserve a name !) and of the pupa, eventually, 

 on August 16th, became a butterfly of the form terra, 

 somewhat transitional to obscura. Thus was obtained the 

 first proof by breeding that the forms of eurytus known 

 as tirikensis, hobleyi, terra and obscura are conspecific. 

 The cable bearing the single word " terra,^^ probably the 

 first cable ever sent about a butterfly only, did not reach 

 Oxford until after the conclusion of the Entomological 

 Congress, but Professor Poulton announced the result 

 in the letter to Nature (September 12, 1912, p. 36), which 

 has been already partially quoted. 



A letter that I received from him may be quoted here. 



August 19, 1912. — " I must write at once now that 

 the great cable has come to-day. I will send a letter 

 to Nature next week, so that you may get the credit at 

 once of this most important discovery. . . . 



"It is splendid to have this great disturbing question 

 settled at last. Your work is a splendid help towards 

 confirming the Darwinian theory of mimicry. ... I 

 must now conclude, but cannot do so without again con- 

 gratulating you on this great success. I have longed 

 for this to be done for two or three years, and have tried 

 my best to induce friends to do it. I even tried to persuade 

 Millar to journey from Durban on purpose to do it ! 

 It is a splendid thing to have accomplished ; quite side 

 by side with Marshall's breeding of the seasonal forms 

 of Precis.^ . . . 



" P.S. — After your cable I imitated your example 

 and have just had a sleepless night ! But it's only 



1 Trans. Ent. Soc, 1912, pp. 706-11. 



2 Ibid., 1902, pp. 417-58, 



