xlii 
PROCEEDINGS, 
The following lecture was delivered :— 
“ Protective Resemblance in Insects.” By Hugh Main, B.Sc., 
F.E.S. 
The lecture was illustrated by lantern-slides, mostly from 
photographs of living insects, and dealt with many of the varied 
forms of cryptic coloration in the egg, larva, pupa, and imago 
stages of moths and butterflies. 
Visit to the Natural History Museum, 16th October, 1909. 
This visit was planned for the inspection of the temporary 
exhibition of memorials of Charles Robert Darwin arranged 
by Dr. W. Gf. Ridewood in the Central Hall of the Museum, and 
was under the direction of Mr. Hopkinson. The year 1909 was 
chosen for the exhibition as being the hundredth anniversary 
of the birth of Darwin and the fiftieth anniversary of the 
publication of his greatest work, the ‘ Origin of Species by 
means of Natural Selection.’ # Most of the objects which were 
shown are the property of the British Museum. 
The Director first drew attention to the statue of Darwin 
at the top of the first flight of stairs at the north end of 
the Hall, which was unveiled on the 9th of June, 1885. 
Proceeding to the special exhibition, portraits of the Darwins— 
seven generations, Charles being of the third—were inspected, 
his dating from 1849 to 1882, the year of his death. Views of 
interest in connection with his life, such as a sketch of the 
* Beagle ’ in Tierra del Puego, views of Cambridge in his time, of 
his house at Down, and of the village, were also seen. 
Manuscripts were then examined, including original letters to 
and from Darwin, one of the most interesting being that from 
Henslow to him inviting him to travel as naturalist on the 
* Beagle,’ the acceptance of which offer was the origin of his 
scientific career. This was followed by the inspection of other 
letters, and of manuscripts, books, and objects of interest 
connected with the voyage of the ‘ Beagle,’ 1881-1836. 
Some phases of the history of Darwin’s ideas on the origin of 
species were next commented upon. The first clear conception 
of the theory occurred to him at the end of 1838 or the beginning 
of 1839, and he wrote a sketch of it in 1842 in a MS. of 35 pages, 
which he expanded in 1844 to 230 pages. The first page of the 
later MS. was shown. 
Books by him, evincing the wide range of his researches, were 
then seen, amongst the earlier of which may be mentioned his 
Monographs of the Cirripedia, the fossil forms published by the 
Palseontographical Society in two parts in 1851 and 1854, and 
the recent forms by the Ray Society in two volumes in the 
same years. 
* For a sketch of the life of Charles Darwin see ‘ Transactions,’ Yol. VII, 
pp. 101-136. 
