24 



Wadham, has settled all the details in the arrangements of which 

 T was just now speaking. The General Secretary, Dr. Malcolm 

 Burr, who has been himself far from well, is unable to be present 

 in consequence of the very serious illness of his wife. We all 

 extend to him our warmest sympathy, and the hope that Mrs. 

 Burr will rapidly recover, and that he himself will soon be restored 

 to full health and strength. In the meantime Mr. H. Eltringham, 

 although he has only just brought out a long and exhaustive 

 monograph on the AcrcBÍnce, occupying the whole of Part I of 

 the Transactions of the Entomological Society of London for this 

 year, has thrown himself into the breach, and, with the assistance 

 of Mr. G. H. Grosvenor, has enabled us to overcome all the 

 difficulties which threatened to overwhelm our preparations for 

 the meeting. 



I must also refer to the friendly and cordial relationship 

 between the University Museum and the two great Museums 

 established near Oxford, the British Museum of Natural History 

 and the great Zoological Museum at Tring. From these two 

 Museums the Hope Department has always received the kindest 

 help, and I am glad to think that we in turn have been able to 

 render them some assistance. We shall have the opportunity on 

 Saturday of visiting the Tring Museum, and I am sure that we 

 all look forward with very great pleasure to that day as a most 

 agreeable and appropriate close to the Congress of 1912. 



I propose to devote the remainder of this address to the 

 exhibition and description of the series of the African Swallow-tail 

 butterfly, Papilio dardanus, and the related island forms in the 

 University collection. By this single great example I hope to 

 make clear one chief aim of the Hope Department — the study of 

 specific change in relation to geographical distribution and to 

 the organic environment. Members of the Congress who desire 

 to study in detail the work which has been done will have ample 

 opportunity of seeing two great collections — the PierincB worked 

 out and arranged by Dr. F. A. Dixey, the Acrœince by Mr. H. 

 Eltringham — as well as the special series, illustrating mimicry 

 and other bionomic principles, in which both the Pierinœ and 

 AcrceincB play an important part. 



The complexity of the problem presented by Papilio dardanus 



