1871.] 141 [Morse. 



April 5, 1871. 



Vice President, Dr. Chas. T. Jackson, in the chair. Thirty- 

 nine persons present. 



Rev. Edwin 0. Bolles of Salem, Joseph Stone of Charles- 

 town, Thomas C. Felton, Walter Ela and W. G. Farlow of 

 Cambridge, Richard W. Bender, Sidney E. Sargent, William 

 R. Nichols, Fletcher M. Abbott and S. Dana Hayes of Bos- 

 ton, were elected Resident Members. 



Prof. Edward S. Morse presented the following paper : — 



On the Adaptive Coloration of Mollusca. 



Naturalists have long recognized the curious cases oftentimes oc- 

 curring, of the resemblance between the color of an animal and its 

 immediate surroundings. It had been supposed that climatic influ- 

 ences, or peculiarities of food, or greater or less access to light had 

 something to do with these coincidences. Mr. Alfred R. Wallace has 

 shown that the varied phases of these phenomena could not be ex- 

 plained by such agents, and in a paper "On Mimicry and other pro- 

 tective resemblances among Animals," published in the Westminster 

 Review , July, 1867, and since made widely public in his work on "Nat- 

 ural Selection" he shows that the singular resemblances between. the 

 colors of animals and their surroundings are mainly brought about by 

 the protection afforded them through greater concealment. Many 

 very interesting examples are then cited from the Vertebrates and 

 Articulates in support of these views. Briefly may be mentioned as 

 examples, the almost universal sand color of those animals inhabit- 

 ing desert tracts ; the white color of those animals living amid per- 

 petual snows; the resemblance seen again and again between the 

 color of many insects and the places they frequent. Among the 

 hosts of examples cited by Mr. Wallace as illustrating plainly the 

 views he advances, may be mentioned the many species of Cicindela 

 or tiger beetle. The common English species, "C campestris, fre- 

 quents grassy banks and is of a beautiful green color, while C. mari- 

 tima> which is found only on sandy sea shores, is of a pale bronzy 

 yellow, so as to be almost invisible." He then states that a great 

 number of species found by himself in the Malay Archipelago, were 

 similarly protected. "The beautiful Cicindela glariosa, of a deep 



