I884.J 
Analyses of Books. 
365 
drops fell at the average rate of 50 per minute, and as near as 
the author could judge of their size, the total quantity of water 
which must thus pass through the body of the moth in three 
hours must be a cubic inch, or about two hundred times the bulk 
of its own body. Mr. Jones speculates on the possible meaning 
of this dipsomania, and asks — “ Can it be that the moth extracts 
nourishment from minute particles of organic matter contained 
in the water?” He remarks, however, that the water of the 
streams appears very clear and pure, and notes that the moths 
seem specially adapted for this habit. The tibiae of the hindlegs 
are very thick, and are armed with long hairs, which by their 
capillary aCtion prevent the moth being immersed in the water. 
“ I have often,” he adds, “ seen one of them knocked down by a 
little spurt of water splashing over the stone on which it was 
standing, and it recovered itself almost immediately without being 
wetted in the least.” 
Mr. Jones also contributes a paper on the question “ Do Birds 
Eat Butterflies ?” which is one of great interest as bearing upon 
the question of mimicry. He writes — “ During the whole of 
my residence in Brazil, amounting in all to eight years and a-half, 
I cannot call to mind a single case of a bird that habitually 
devours butterflies, though I may have, now and then, seen a 
scissor-bird snap at a passing one, as we sometimes see our 
English sparrows do. But my opinion is that birds do not 
devour butterflies to an extent at all sufficient to account for a 
protective colouration of their wings through the aCtion of natural 
selection. ” 
Since writing our notice of Mr. Pascoe’s “ Notes on Natural 
Selection ” we have questioned several old gardeners on the sub- 
ject, but we have found none of them prepared to assert positively 
that any species of British bird does habitually prey upon butter- 
flies. They had all, from time to time, seen a sparrow chasing 
a butterfly, and occasionally striking it down; but they could 
not distinctly state that the victim was eaten ! The Old School 
were wont to tell us that the final cause of the wavering flight of 
butterflies was for their protection against birds. 
Among the papers inserted in extenso we notice one by Mr. E. 
Davies, F.C.S., the President, “On the Unity of Life.” The 
author insists ably on the absence of any tenable boundary be- 
tween plants and animals, and is even, like ourselves, willing to 
admit that living vegetable protoplasm may possess “ a dim 
consciousness of external influences with a corresponding mea- 
sure of pleasure or pain.” At the same time he finds between 
living and non-living matter a difference not of degree but of 
kind. 
