122 



NATURE 



[October 9. 1919 



will to that extent have conferred a benefit on the 

 community. 



Regarding, as 1 do, my present position in this Sec- 

 tion as a great honour and privilege, especially in 

 view of this being the first meeting of the British 

 Association to be held after the war, 1 hope I may be 

 allowed a few preliminar\- remarks of a somewhat 

 autobiographical character. As far back as I can 

 remember, zoology has been a passion with me. I 

 was brought up in a non-zoological environment, and 

 for the first few years of my life my only knowledge 

 of the subject was gained from an odd volume of 

 Chambers's "Information for the People." But on 

 being asked by a visitor what 1 intended to do with 

 myself when I grew up, I can distinctly remember 

 answering, with the confident assurance of seven or 

 eight, "Zoology suits me best" — pronouncing the 

 word, which 1 had only seen and never heard, as 

 zoology. By the time I went to school, my ojiportuni- 

 ties had increased; but I soon found myself engaged 

 in the classical and mathematical routine from which 

 in those days there was little chance of escape. In 

 due course I went to the University with a classical 

 scholarship, which necessitated for the time an even 

 more rigid exclusion of scientific aspirations than 

 before. I mention this because I wish to pay a tri- 

 bute of gratitude to the College authorities of that day, 

 to whose wise policy I owe it that I was eventually 

 able to fulfil in some measure my desire for natural, 

 and especially biological, knowledge. After two years 

 of more or less successful application to the literary 

 studies of the University, 1 petitioned to be allowed to 

 read for the final school in natural science. The 

 petition was granted ; my scholarship was not taken 

 away, and was even prolonged to the end of my fifth 

 year. This I think was an enlightened measure, 

 remarkable for the time, more than forty years ago, 

 when it was adopted. 1 only hope that we have not 

 in this respect fallen back from the standard of our 

 predecessors. The avidity with which I took up the 

 study of elementary chemistry and physics, and the 

 enthusiasm with which I started on comparative ana- 

 tomy under the auspices of George Rolleston are 

 among the inost pleasant recollections of my youth. 

 But from the force of circumstances, though always at 

 heart a zoologist, I have never been in a ]X)sition to 

 give myself unreservedly to that department of biology ; 

 and even now, in what I must call my old age, I fear 

 I cannot regard myself as much more than a zoologi- 

 cal amateur. My working hours are largely taken up 

 with serving tables. 



What moral do I draw from this brief recital? Not 

 by any means that I should have been allowed to 

 escape a grounding in the elements of a literary edu- 

 cation, though I think it quite possible that the past, 

 and even the present, methods of school instruction are 

 not ideally the best. My experience has led me to 

 conclude that much of the time spent over the minutiee 

 of Greek and Latin grammar might, in the case of the 

 average boy, be better employed. But I do not agree 

 that a moderate knowledge of the classics, well taught 

 by a sensible master, is useless from any reasonable 

 point of view. To those of my hearers who appreciate 

 Kipling, I would call to mind the vividly truthful 

 sketch of school life called "Regulus." Let them 

 reflect how the wonderful workmanship of the inspired 

 and inspiring Ode of Horace, round which the sketch 

 is written, must have sunk into the mind of the appa- 

 rently careless and exasperating "Beetle," the "egre- 

 gious Beetle " as King calls him, to bear such marvel- 

 lous fruit in after years. Beetle, as we all know, is 

 no professional scholar, no classical pedant, but a man 

 of the world who has not forgotten his Horace, and 

 upon whose extraordinary literary skill those early 

 school-tasks must have had, whether consciously or 



NO. 2606, VOL. 104] 



not, a dominating influence. How else could he have 

 written "Regulus"? " Vou see," says King, "that 

 some of it sticks." So it does, if it is only given a 

 fair chance ; and in the skirmish between King the 

 classical and Hartopp the science master, both right 

 up to a point and both wrong beyond it, I give on the 

 whole the palm to King. To revert to my own case. 

 I do not regret a word of either the Latin or the Greek 

 that I was obliged to read, nor even the inkling of the 

 niceties of scholarship to which 1 got, I hope, a fair 

 introduction. But I do think that 1 might have been 

 allowed to start on scientific work at an earlier period, 

 and that a good deal of the time spent, say, on Greek 

 and Latin prose and verse writing, might in my case 

 have been well spared for other objects. 



To generalise what I have been saying. Start teach- 

 ing your boy or girl on a good wide basis. Nothing 

 is better for this than the old school subjects of classics, 

 histor\ , and mathematics, with the addition of natural 

 scienc. In course of time a bent will declare itself. 

 Encourage this, even at the ex|3ense of other studies 

 desirable in themselves. But do not allow any one 

 subject, however congenial, to usurp the place of a 

 grounding in those matters which are proper to a 

 general education. The time for specialising will 

 come ; and when it has arrived do all you can to 

 remove obstacles, f>ecuniary and other. Do not hamp<;r 

 your historian with chemistry or your zoologist with 

 the differential calculus. If they have a taste for these 

 things by way of diversion or recreation, well and 

 good. But let their action be voluntary. 



This, however, is not a fitting occasion for pro- 

 pounding my views on the question of education, and 

 it is time to turn to the immediate object of my ad- 

 dress. And here I think I cannot do better than 

 bring before your notice certain facts which have a 

 bearing on the subject of insect mimicry ; a subject 

 which for many years past has engaged much of my 

 attention. The facts on all hands are allowed to be 

 remarkable. As to their interpretation there is much 

 diversity of opinion ; and indeed, until complete 

 data are forthcoming, this could scarcely be other- 

 wise. 



In the first place let us glance at a certain assem- 

 blage of butterflies that inhabits New Guinea with 

 some of the adjacent islands. These butterflies, though 

 belonging to different subfamilies, present a resem- 

 blance to each other which is too strong to be acci- 

 dental. Three of them belong to the Pierines, the 

 group which includes the common white butterflies of 

 this country; the fourth is a Nymphaline, not widely 

 removed from our well-known tortoiseshells, red 

 admiral and peacock. The resemblance on the upper 

 surface between two of the three Pierines is not esfjeci- 

 ally noteworthy, inasmuch as they present in common 

 the ordinary Pierine appearance of a white or nearly 

 white ground colour with a dark border somewhat 

 broadened at the apex. But this, an everyday feature 

 in the Pierines, is almost unknown in the very large 

 subfamily to which our present Nymphaline belongs. 

 Still, though sufficiently remarkable to arrest the 

 attention of anyone familiar with these groups, the 

 Pierine -like aspect of the upper surface of this Nym- 

 phaline, which is known as Mynes dorvca, would not 

 by itself have seemed to call for any special explana- 

 tion. The resemblance would pass as merely an inter- 

 esting coincidence. But the under surface of the three 

 Pierines, known respectively as Huphina abnormis. 

 Delias ornytion, and Delias irma. presents a striking 

 combination of colour very unusual in their own 

 group; and this peculiar character of the under surface 

 is shared by the Nymphaline Myties doryca. The 

 "long arm of coincidence " could scarcelv reach so far 

 as this. Whatever might be said about the likeness 

 seen from above, that the wings beneath should show 



