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sent to their ultimate destination, the British Museum, 

 arose, the possihihty of their being kept permanently to- 

 gether might be considered, and their retention in the present 

 arrangement stipulated for. The absence of any rare or 

 unique examples from their proper places in the collection 

 would be more than compensated for by the increased interest 

 which would thus be secured, and the series would serve as 

 a model to curators of other museums in the art of making 

 butterfly collections interesting and instructive. 



He had to speak that evening without the advantage of 

 having heard the first part of the discussion, and what he 

 had to say was therefore based mainly on the abstract which 

 had been furnished of it. He thought, and his opinion was 

 formed on personal experience gained in collecting in many 

 countries, tropical and otherwise, that there was too much 

 assumption about either the Batesian or Miillerian theories 

 of mimicry. In many supposed cases he doubted whether 

 the so-called models were protected either by taste or smell, 

 and he thought that the importance of birds as enemies of 

 butterflies had been overrated. It seemed to him that the 

 protection supposed to be given to the imago was of little 

 account in the perpetuation of the species when compared 

 with the destruction which took place in the larval or pupal 

 stage by climatic influence, as well as by insect and other 

 enemies. 



However beautiful these explanations of the phenomena of 

 mimicry were in theory they ought not in most cases to be 

 treated as proved scientific axioms. He did not deny that 

 there might be some truth in each of the theories which had 

 been put forward, but it appeared to him that altogether too 

 much stress was laid on them. Had any observations been 

 made which would justify the statement that the members of 

 a Miillerian group were inedible, as was asserted by Dr. Dixey 

 in his quoted remarks ? 



He desired to call attention again to a passage in his 

 Presidential Addi'ess on Geographical Distribution (Trans. 

 Ent. Soc. Lond., 1894, pp. Ixv., Ixvi.). He had said : 

 " What is most remarkable is the existence, at high eleva- 

 tions in various parts of the Andes, and at sea level in South 



