lA 



( 13 ) 



by (ivy conditiors ; but large experiments specially designed to 

 test this hypothesis were required before it could be accepted. 

 The distribution of the inaria form in Africa did not seem to 

 point in this dii-ection. We did not yet know the conditions 

 of moisture or dryness under which these larvae aud pupae had 

 been kept by ]\Ir. Eogers. Whatever the interpretation, '''■ the 

 results were extremely interesting, and contrasted in a I'emark- 

 able manner with those obtained by Mr, G. F. Leigh, F.E.S. 

 (Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond., 1904, pp. 689, 690, Plate XXXII). 

 The relative number of the females and the slightly earlier 

 average emergence of the males were interesting points 

 shown in the above table. 



MuLLERiAN Mimicry in Euploeinae. — Professor Poulton 

 exhibited sets of Euploeine butterflies fi^om Southern India, 

 the Solomon Islands, New Guinea, and Fiji, showing that the 

 pattern, which differed at each of these localities, was followed 

 by various local species. Two different patterns were shown 

 from New Guinea and two from the Solomons. The exhibition 

 was intended to meet the criticisms contained in a letter by 

 Lt.-Col. Manders, read at a recent meeting and now publi^hed 

 in the " Entomologist's Record " for May (pp. 120, 121). The 

 writer of this letter implied that the resemblances figured by 



[xxxviii 

 Mr. J. C. Moulton on Plate XXXIV of the 1908 Transactions 

 were precisely parallel to those of the commoner British 

 species of rierinae. The specimens exhibited, to which many 

 others might have been added, proved that the argument was 

 unsound. The patterns of Pierinae did not exhibit anything 

 like the same local peculiarities and local resemblances as those 

 of the Eujiloeinae. Col. Manders had also implied that the 

 Mullerian interpretation of the resemblances between Euploeas 

 was a recent innovation, whereas it had been suggested by 

 Prof. Meldola, F.K.S., in 1882 (" Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist.," 5th 

 Ser., Vol. X, 1882, p. 417), and set forth in detail by the 

 late Frederick Moore in the following year ("Proc. Zool. Soc, 



* Mr. L. Doncaster, F.E.S., who oxaiiiiiifd tlie series at the eoncliision 

 of the meeting, suggested that the results may be due to tlie Jlendelian 

 dominance of the inaria over tlie type form of female, the tendency to 

 inaria having been carried by the male jtarent. It would be of the 

 highest iuterei^t to test this suggestion by breeding IVom tlie first filial 

 generation (F. 1).— E. B. P., ,Tune'^20th, 1909. 



