74 
too despondent an attitude is assumed. A study of the Transactions 
of the Entomological Society of London from 1858 onwards will reveal 
numerous papers by well-known adherents of the new views, such as 
H. W. Bates, A. R. Wallace, and Sir J. Lubbock. One paper of H. 
W. Bates on South American butterflies is of peculiar interest. It 
was written as a letter to Adam White, from Ega, on the Upper Amazon, 
on May 20th, 1857, over a year before the Darwin- Wallace paper on 
natural selection was read before the Linnean Society on July Ist, 
1858. Mr. Bates’ letter is published as the first paper in vol. v of 
series li (1858-1861) of the 7ransactions. Speaking of the Heliconiidae, 
he says: ‘‘ This family I look upon as mostly a modern creation, the 
species unfixed, very susceptible of change, in conjunction with the 
least modification of local circumstance ; but these theoretical notions 
I suppose you do not care about.”’ This must be one of the first, if 
not the very first expression of opinion in favour of evolution pub- 
lished by a London scientific society. Not only did the Entomo- 
logical Society publish a large number of papers by these great 
pioneers, but again and again they filled the most important offices. 
Thus, although Bates was a corresponding member of the Society when 
he wrote the paper from which I have quoted, he was on the Council 
in 1864, 1866, 1867, 1872, 1877, was a Vice-President in 1870, 
1873, 1876, 1879, 1880, and President in 1868, 1869, and 1878. 
Wallace was a member of Council in 1866, 1872, Vice-President in 
1864, 1869, and President in 1870, 1871. Lubbock was a Vice- 
President in 1862, 1868, and 1881, and President in 1866, 1867, 
1879, 1880. The majority of the senior members of the Society 
were undoubtedly opposed to the new views, but there was evidently 
no attempt to boycott those who were known as strong and convinced 
supporters of them. 
Although Darwin had written in such depressing terms of the 
entomologists in 1863, only four years later he went to the opposite 
extreme in a letter to Professor Haeckel. Writing on May 21st, 1867, 
he said: ‘‘ No body of men were at first so much opposed to my views 
as the members of the London Entomological Society, but now I am 
assured that, with the exception of two or three old men, all the 
members concur with me to a certain extent’ (loc. cit., ill., 69). 
The words ‘to a certain extent’’ are, of course, elastic, but, 
stretching them to the utmost, it must be conceded that this 
last letter is as optimistic as the former is pessimistic. The 
members of the Society were fair, and gave a hearing and an im- 
portant position to an opponent; but he still remained an opponent. 
A convinced evolutionist did not feel himself in the congenial society 
of those who agreed with him in principle even if they differed in detail 
in 1867, nor, for that matter, in 1877. By 1887 an immense improve- 
ment had been effected, but Darwin’s words could only be used of this 
date by those of a very sanguine temperament. However, the changes 
were well under weigh which were to make them entirely appropriate 
before the end of the next decade. 
It is interesting to remember that the three epoch-making papers 
on mimicry by H. W. Bates, A. R. Wallace, and R. Trimen appeared 
respectively in 1862, 1866, and 1870, in the Transactions of the 
Linnean Society and not in those of the Entomological Society. This 
fact is no doubt partly due to the special suitability of the quarto form 
