BY THE PRESIDENT. 
13 
are an exceptional genus of the Eosacese, and, though astringent, 
are not so disagreeable as the buttercups, one of which, R . sceleratus , 
will blister the hand that gathers it. Young students frequently 
confound the flowers of the two groups, and if animals do the same 
we have an exact analogy to what occasionally occurs among insects. 
For instance a family of South American butterflies, the Heliconidae, 
are of striking colouration, and, though slow-fliers of gregarious 
habits, are not caught by birds which feed on insects, owing, it 
is supposed, to the disagreeable flavour they possess. Yow the 
Pieridse differ from the Heliconidse in distinct structural characters, 
and their colour is generally white. Yet they contain a genus, viz. 
Leptales, of which the greater number of species are spared by 
mimicking the Heliconidse, not only in the form and colour of the 
wings, hut also in the mode of flight.*' Some of my hearers may 
think that the bee-orchid (Ophrys apifera) should be mentioned as 
an instance of protective mimicry, and that it may be avoided by 
ruminants from its resemblance to a bee just as our large wood-borer 
(Sirex gig as) may be spared on account of its marking being not 
unlike the well-armed hornet. I must confess, however, that the 
only similarity I can see between this orchid and a bee is in its 
hairy labellum, which is not unlike the abdomen of a humble bee. 
Yet it is just possible that the plant may derive from this appear¬ 
ance a protection superadded to that which I believe all flowers 
possess.f 
Animals and plants have so many forms and colourations that we 
cannot be surprised if some of them are common to the two groups, 
and are repeated in widely-separated families of the same group. 
Protective mimicry implies, however, that protection arises from 
some similarity of appearance, and for this reason I do not include 
in this category plants like the Cacti and some of the Euphorbias, 
which, though quite distinct, resemble one another and possess the 
same means of protection, viz. thorns. 
Protection oe Seeds and Spores. 
If the Poet Laureate had lived when the gigantic fauna and 
flora of the Carboniferous era were disappearing, he would have 
modified the lines which I quoted at the commencement of 
* A paper in the ‘ Transactions of the Linnean Society,’ vol. xxiii, p. 495, hy 
Mr. Bates, who first drew attention to the object of this mimetic analogy, is 
accompanied hy an illustrative plate. 
t There is a doubt whether Ophrys apifera is visited hy bees, and this is 
apparently confirmed hy the special adaptations the plant possesses for its self¬ 
fertilisation. B. T. Lowne, however, informs me that he found on one occasion 
in the Isle of Wight many bees hearing its pollinia. 
