( xxxiii ) 



seeing in nature tluit e\eiy living being served as the food of 

 some other being, arrived at the conclusion that the order of 

 things is fixed and unchanging, and that by sure instincts and 

 keen senses the insect-eating animals found their prey, un- 

 hindered by concealment or by any other mode of protection. 

 M. Oberthiir believed in short that the very words "conceal- 

 ment " and " protection " only represent an unsound anthropo- 

 morphic inference, for, in his opinion, neither concealment nor 

 protection from enemies is ever afforded. From a study of the 

 same struggle for existence the majority of naturalists have 

 come to very different conclusions. They saw evidence for 

 the existence of a balance between the aggressive and pro- 

 tective forces, and believed that in maintaining this balance 

 cryptic colours and warning and mimetic patterns were of 

 essential importance to numberless species. They recognised 

 the usual ultimate success of the enemies of insects, but also 

 saw that this success involved hard work and much time spent 

 in the chase, and that in fact the relationship between pursuer 

 and pursued was precisely of the kind to strengthen the faculties 

 and powers of the one and gradually improve the protective 

 methods of the other. 



Professor E. B. Poulton also exhibited two female specimens 

 of Laphria gilva, L., captured with prey (Sept. 1906) at 

 Grinderwald, Hanover, by Dr. Karl Jordan. One female, 

 captured in coitH, was devouring the Pentatomid bug, Dolycoris 

 baccarum, de G., male; the other was carrying a worker 

 of Vespa rufa, L. AsilidcX preying upon the formidable 

 Diploptera had often been recorded from tropical countries, 

 but never before, so far as the speaker was aware, from 

 Europe. 



Professor E. B. Poult(jn then made the following com- 

 munication ; — 



On the species op Neptis in the islands to the E. and 

 THE N.W. OF Madagascar. — My attention was first directed 

 to the interesting and puzzling problem presented by these 

 species by the recent communications of Colonel N. Manders, 

 F.E.S., and by the specimens collected by him in Mauritius 

 and Bourbon, The considerable difference in detail between 

 jVepiis frobeida, F., of Mauritius, and iV. dumetarum, Boisd., of 

 PROC. bnt. soc. lond., II. 1908. o 



