918 THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S RECORD. 
vicious callousness and brutal rapacity. However, I have at last found 
time to begin. 
I think all people interested in these problems will think it fitting, 
if I preface my remarks with an expression of a very genuine regret 
that among those British soldiers who will never more return from the 
Gallipoli peninsula must be numbered Col. Neville Manders. One of 
his last acts before his departure for active service was to communicate 
a very courteous and encouraging paragraph to the Hnt. Record (vol. 
xxv., p. 309) to say how interested he had been in my previous paper. 
When he left we all hoped to be able to welcome his return to the field 
of controversy. Now, however, we can only regret that a painstaking, 
careful and original investigator, and a chivalrous disputant has been 
removed, and will no longer endeavour to unravel the tangled skein of 
phenomena that complicate this involved subject. Where I haye to 
criticise his conclusions I will endeavour to do so remembering that he 
is no longer here to defend himself. 
I think perhaps the next matter I should touch upon is the un- 
fortunate paragraph that led the Rev. G. Wheeler to censure me so 
severely. Iam glad to say that the personal element of friction has 
been laid to rest, I hope for ever, by a frank correspondence between 
us, and Mr. Wheeler very kindly allowed me to see what he proposed 
to print before it was sent to the press, and in some respects he modified 
it at my suggestion, but it must not therefore be assumed that I accept 
all the arguments therein. With regard to the original cause of the 
difficulty the readers of the Record have before them all the facts 
necessary to enable them to form their own opinion as to the extent of 
unintentional misrepresentation laid to my charge. So faras it existed 
it was almost wholly due to an effort to compress and curtail what 
seemed to me to be getting to be a very lengthy paper, so lengthy 
indeed that I feared its absolute refusal. At the risk of bringing down 
the editorial wrath on my head this time, I shall quote in extenso 
where need or occasion shall be or require, and run no risk from 
condensation giving rise to controversy. With regard, however, to 
the substance of the comments inserted by Mr. Wheeler as it bears 
on the problem, I think it shows that he believes I have stated my 
beliefs rather higher than I am prepared to put those beliefs myself, 
and rather higher, too, than I think our present information war- 
rants. Personally I have a way of mentally pigeonholing cases 
which strike me as bearing out the theories, and many of the 
cases go in the pigeonhole which might be labelled ‘“‘ presumably pro- 
tectively coloured ; requires investigation in habitat.” The value of a 
resemblance as a means of hiding is sometimes more and sometimess 
less than one would expect from the specimen in the hand, and some- 
times investigation will quite falsify a provisional guess. 
I do in reality, as Mr. Wheeler on p. 190 of vol. xxv. puts forward, 
make “the universality of a theory’s applicability the test of its truth.” 
Such experience, as I have acquired of theory in other realms of 
thought, has convinced me that the surest way of testing a theory is 
to carry it owt to its logical extremity (or absurdity if you will). If 
the theory will stand that it is pretty certain to be correctly and com- 
petently stated. If it will not it is necessary to modify it in some way 
which will enable it to be used in its entirety without bringing about 
such a breakdown. 
