6 PREFACE 



Department has been that very study of Warning Colora- 

 tion and Mimicry from which, as an American naturalist 

 has recently stateci, ' the theory of natural selection as 

 applied to Insects receives its strongest support ^' Indeed 

 the reference to Insects might safely be omitted ; for the 

 facts brought to light in the pursuit of this study furnish 

 what is probably the most convincing of all evidence in 

 support of the Darwinian hypothesis. 



In the meantime the systematic side of the Department 

 has occupied a large amount of time and care. It has 

 not been found that the two courses indicated by Professor 

 Huxley are by any means mutually exclusive. The 

 measure of success which has attended the attack on the 

 larger problems has been due in great part to the 

 existence in Oxford of a splendid general collection — 

 taking all the groups of Insects into account, the second 

 in the British Empire. 



Such success as the Hope Department has achieved 

 in these two directions has been due to many causes : — 

 to the energy and sympathy with which my Assistants, 

 Mr. W. Holland and Mr. A. H. Hamm, have entered into 

 the various researches which we have undertaken together ; 

 to the important investigations carried on by Dr. Dixey ; 

 to the recoofnition of Oxford as a centre where these 

 problems are studied. The result of this latter influence 

 has been the continual and ever-increasing accession of 

 material and observations from all parts of the world. 

 The inflow from Africa has been so large that the present 

 volume of Reports is entirely occupied with the problems 

 of Ethiopian zoology. This solid contribution to the 



^ A. G. Mayer, Science Bulletin of the Brooklyn Museum, Vol. I, No. 2, 

 Oct. 1902, p. 36. 



