13 
present work too long in order to include them, considering that 
they will appear at some later date. On the other hand, such an 
important observation as the following demands the deter- 
mination of the specimen referred to, when it can be found: 
“351 [Reference Number]. 1 [indicating a single individual]. 
15th Oct., 1825. At the Discoberto do Antonio Velho [during 
a journey from Rio into Minas Geraes]. P.[meaning ‘ Papilio,’ 
in the wide sense]. This species and the following settle on 
the smooth sunny bark of the trunks of large trees, and when 
in their flight they meet another of the same species they 
appear to fight, and at the same time produce with their 
wings an extraordinary and loud and quickly repeated crack- 
ling noise.’ A specimen of the Nymphaline butterfly, Perz- 
dromia amphinome, L., bears the No. “351,” while “352” is 
borne by the closely-allied Peridromia feronia, Hiibn., the very 
species upon which Darwin made the same observation, a few 
years later, when visiting Rio, on the voyage of the Beagle, 
April 4 to July 5, 1832 (“Journal of Researches,” London, 
1876, pp. 33, 34). 
It was therefore decided to attempt to find and determine 
every African specimen and every numbered specimen from 
other parts of the world, referred to in Burchell’s note-books. 
This has proved to be the hardest single piece of work under- 
taken in the Hope Department during the past twelve years. 
Nevertheless, it is hoped that the whole of the manuscript 
will be in the hands of the printers before May 19, 1905, in 
less than a year from the commencement. Such compara- 
tively rapid progress has only been possible by co-operation 
on a large scale, and it is a great pleasure to acknowledge 
the large amount of assistance which has been received 
in the course of this considerable undertaking. One rather 
extreme example will serve to indicate the kind and extent 
of labour which has been necessary, as well as the friendly 
sympathy of brother-naturalists. 
Entirely out of place in one of the two boxes containing 
Burchell’s British insects, was a very small pill-box containing 
—quite loose—nine minute beetles, each about the size of 
