270 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



the Oxford breakfast and "bedder," and given an opportunity to 

 inspect the matchless silver treasured within these ancient 

 *' homes of peace." Among eminent lepidopterists may be 

 mentioned M. Charles Oberthiir, of Rennes, paying a first visit 

 to England, and Professor J). A. Seitz, of Darmstadt ; of other 

 branches, Dr. A. Handlirsch (Vienna), Professor A. Lameere 

 (Brussels), President in 1910, Dr. E. Olivier (Moulins), Professor 

 H. J. Kolbe (Berlin), Professor Dr. J. F. Van Bemmelen (Gro- 

 ningen). Dr. G. Horvath (Budapest), Father Lunginos Navas 

 (Barcelona), Professor Y. Sjostedt (Stockholm), of Kilimanjaro 

 fame ; and a fully representative body of workers from America, 

 including Professor J. H. Comstock (Ithaca), Dr. L. 0. Howard 

 (Washington), Professor V. L. Kellogg (Stanford University), Dr. 

 H. Skinner (Philadelphia), and Professor W. M. Wheeler (Har- 

 vard) ; economic entomology in the Canadian Commonwealth 

 being safe in the hands of Dr. C. Gordon Hewitt (Ottawa) and 

 Mr. H. H. Lyman (Montreal). 



Presidential Address. 



The Presidential Address was delivered on Monday morning. 

 Professor Poulton laying special stress on the claim of the 

 Oxford University Museum as a place of meeting. For it was 

 under this same roof that the early struggles between the 

 " Darwinians " and the older schools of thought took place ; 

 that Ruskin preached the doctrines of natural beauty ; and that 

 from early beginnings in 1849 the Hope Department under 

 Westwood took form and shape as leader and teacher in the 

 world of entomological discovery and thought. 



By means of numerous examples he then traced the evolu- 

 tion of the female butterfly Papilio dardanus from Madagascar 

 across the continent of Africa. In the island the female closely 

 approaches the male in the coloration and markings of the 

 wings. But on the continent at the Rift Valley escarpment, 

 British East Africa, and in its westward localities it assumes a 

 variety of forms corresponding with the several distasteful species 

 of other genera found or known to exist in these localities. Thus 

 on the north-east and north-west Nyanza the males are still 

 unchanged in appearance, yet the female butterfly exhibits wings 

 of several patterns. But while the males retain their ancestral 

 coloration, the females mimic various Danaine species. In 

 Nigeria the female occurs principally in a black and white form 

 (= hippocoon), mimicking the dominant black and white Danaine 

 of that region. Eastward again from the Rift Valley escarp- 

 ment, from Mombasa into German East Africa, the usual models 

 are of the Danaine group, though one form of the female 

 {= planimoides) has developed the pattern of a member of the 

 Acraeine genus Planema, and in South-east Rhodesia the black 



