Transactions for that year, they showed no very considerable 
increase in the results obtained. Some, however, showed a 
substantial increase of the area and intensity of the dark 
parts and a darkening of the light parts, besides the 
occasional appearance of a few blue or lavender scales in 
places where, according to Dr. Dixey, they had a special 
significance. Mr. Merrifield stated that Dr. Standfuss had 
published some temperature experiments on this species which, 
as he had found, had shown itself not so sensitive to pupal 
temperature as some other species of Vanessa had proved them- 
selves to be. Unexpectedly he (Mr. Merrifield) had found the 
species to be distinctly more intolerant of cold and less 
intolerant of heat than is L. sibylla. Experiments on a few 
pupe of Vanessa cardui in 1894, showed this insect to be 
extremely sensitive in its colouring and markings to both 
high and low temperatures; this was quite in accordance 
with the experience of Dr. Standfuss, who had described the 
great results obtained by his experiments with this species. 
Dr. Dixey said that Mr. Merrifield had kindly given him the 
opportunity of carefully examining the specimens exhibited that 
evening. With regard to the specimens of L. sibylla, he should 
prefer to reserve his remarks for another occasion, but in the 
fine series of V. C-album he noticed many individuals as to which 
he might say at once that they seemed to bear out in a most 
interesting way the conclusions arrived at from former experi- 
ments, conducted both by Mr. Merrifield and by Dr. Standfuss, 
with other species. They showed evident marks of reversion, 
and these marks were again of so special a kind as to pre- 
clude the supposition that they were the direct result of changes 
of temperature. The most remarkable of these features, 7.e., 
the well-developed condition of Series III., and the presence of 
blue points in the dark patches composing it, might be seen 
in a conspicuous form in the Chinese species Vanessa (Grapta) 
C-aureum, which insect was for many reasons to be considered 
as one of the oldest surviving representatives of the Vanessid 
group. There could, then, be little doubt that in this 
instance, as in so many others, Mr. Merrifield had succeeded, 
by the introduction of altered conditions, in producing a 
reversion to a more ancestral form than that normally 
assumed by the species. The more these instances ac- 
