17 



record was made by Mr. L. G. Esson on August 18th, the latter 

 by our own member, Mr. B. H. Smith, on September 8th. 

 Leucania extranea has been taken on the Devon coast by Dr. Beck- 

 with Whitehouse, on September 20th, but the other Leucania 

 species, L. vitelUna, that occasionally visits us, does not seem to 

 have been noticed. Plitsia ni, which may prove to be a permanent 

 resident, was taken by Mr. B. H. Smith in the Lizard district on 

 September 9th. Xanthia ocellaris has been taken in several 

 localities round London, as well as at Downham Market, Suffolk, 

 and there can no longer be a doubt that this species is native, for 

 from the condition of many of the captured specimens, it is 

 evident that they must have hatched over here. The species seems 

 also to be exceedingly local, and attached to poplar trees, upon 

 which the larva feeds, so that we may see this insect far more 

 generally represented in collections in the near future. Caradrina 

 ambic/ua has occurred on the Devon and Cornish coasts, but not in 

 the numbers in which it is sometimes met with, and it looks rather 

 as if the few specimens secured were the offspring of a former 

 migration, rather than being themselves migrants. Plitda (jamnui 

 is noted by the Rev. C. R. N. Burrows as occurring at Mucking, 

 Essex, on June 9th, and swarming since, but this seems to be the 

 only recorded occurrence of the insect for the year. It was pro- 

 bably seen by many entomologists, but not in sufficient numbers to 

 warrant them to publish their observations. A Pyralid species that 

 frequently accompanies P. (/aiiuna, XonwpJiila noctuella, seems to 

 have been scarce and rarely observed. 



In the few minutes that I still have to spare 1 wish to say one or 

 two things in relation to that vexed subject " Mimicry." You 

 all know the history of the theories and of what they consist : — 

 How Bates, when he was collecting on the Amazon, found butter- 

 flies of different families which were exceedingly like one another 

 in colour, pattern, and also in habits, and how he found them 

 flying together and deceiving him, and how he accounted for this 

 phenomenon by supposing that one species was edible, while the 

 other was nauseous, and that the one escaped under the guise 

 of the other. He most unfortunately called this resemblance 

 " mimicry," a name at once most unsuitable, and to many people 

 most misleading. It will also be recollected how Bates was unable 

 to account for two distasteful species of different families also 

 mimicking one another, and how Fritz Miiller, eighteen years later, 

 in 1879, explained the dii^culty by suggesting that two species by 

 sharing the attacks of young and inexperienced enemies benefited 



