4 PREFACE 
excessive devotion to the examination system, may still 
be claimed as an academic duty and high privilege second 
to no other in importance. And signs are not wanting 
that the University of Oxford is in this respect tending 
towards the ancient ideals, and, while unwilling to yield 
any of the obvious advantages of modern educational 
systems, is also inclined to encourage learning and original 
research. 
I therefore determined to follow the example of my 
friend and colleague the Linacre Professor, and issue from 
time to time volumes of Reports from the Department, 
containing reprints of the various memoirs which have 
been written in connexion with it. The present volume, 
the first of the series of Hope Reports which I trust will 
follow, is the outcome of four years’ work. During these 
years much time and attention has been occupied in 
obtaining increased space and warmth, as well as many 
other improvements which the growth of the collections 
had rendered necessary. It is therefore to be expected 
that the succeeding volumes will appear at shorter intervals, 
now that these improvements have been effected. 
The lines of research which can be favourably pursued 
in the Hope Department are, in addition to the investiga- 
tion of insect form, function, and classification, those 
general sides of Zoological Science for which insects 
afford some of the best illustrations—such wide subjects 
for instance as evolution, natural selection, variation, and 
the numerous problems included in the phrase relation 
to environment. 
The memoirs dealing with these latter subjects, being 
of more general interest, are placed first in the following 
arrangement, and, while the works of each author are 
kept together, those which deal with general subjects are 
in each case placed first. Two memoirs, No. 6 and 
