Tlie Bionomics of South African Insects. 295 



in detail was communicated to the Zoological Section of 

 tlie British Association at Bradford (Report 1900, pp. 

 793-4), and an abstract of the present paper is printed in 

 the Proceedings of the meeting at which it was read (Proc. 

 Ent. Soc. Lond., 1902, pp. x — xiii). Some of the observa- 

 tions were also brought before the International Zoological 

 Congress at Berlin, 1901 (Verhandlung, p. 171). Lists of 

 the specimens presented to the Hope Department and a 

 brief statement of the principles which they illustrate 

 have been published yearly in the "Report of the Hope 

 Professor of Zoology " communicated to the " Oxford 

 University Gazette." Allusion to some of the material 

 and the problems it illustrates, has also been made by the 

 present writer in Linn. Soc. Journ. Zool., vol. xxvi, 1898, 

 p. 558, and Report Brit. Assoc, 1897, p. 689. Much has 

 been written upon the work on seasonal dimorphism in 

 the genus Precis, but full references will be found in this 

 section of the present paper. 



The first part of the following work, occupying just 

 half of it, deals with experiments and observations upon 

 insectivorous animals, and the conclusions and considerations 

 arising out of this work. The experiments on Maniicbv, 

 Kestrels, and baboons will be found to be especiall}^ 

 numerous and important. A table shows all the examples 

 of Asilidfe and the species forming their prey which could 

 be found recorded or preserved in the British Museum 

 and Hope Collection. The direct and indirect evidence 

 of the attacks of birds on buttertiies meets objections 

 which are often raised, and indeed nearly the whole of 

 this part of the paper is an effective reply to those who 

 ask for facts rather than hypotheses. One very important 

 side of the work is the employment of Coleoptera on a 

 large scale, and the clear evidence of aposematic and 

 synaposematic colours in the group. A compai'ison between 

 the Coleoptera and Lepidoptera in this respect is attempted. 

 The first half of the memoir ends with a section discussing 

 and criticizing the conclusion that there is any great signifi- 

 cance or value in human experience of the taste and smell 

 of insects. 



The second half of the work is more heterogeneous. 

 Its first section attempts to supply an interpretation of 

 the startling seasonal phases of butterflies of the genus 

 Precis. In this section Dr. A. G. Butler's convenient 



