The Hope Reports

Abstract

THE memoirs contained in the bulky sixth volume of the Hope Reports were published separately in the course of the two years from June, 1906, to June, 1908. They bear eloquent witness to the quantity and quality of work which is being turned out by the Hope Department of Zoology in the University of Oxford. The first ten memoirs are chiefly or wholly concerned with bionomic subjects—e.g. particular cases of mimicry sometimes studied on the spot, the recent developments in the theory of mimicry, experiments on seasonally dimorphic forms, the natural attitudes of rest in British moths, predaceous insects and their prey. A subject like the lastj for instance, worked out by the cooperation of many naturalists, commends itself as zoological work of the soundest sort; it brings together a mass of trustworthy information in regard to insect natural history, it has an obvious bearing on the theory of selection, and it makes towards supplying a trustworthy basis for practical measures. Three of these interesting bionomical memoirs are contributed by Dr. F. A. Dixey, two by the Hope professor, and one each by Messrs. T. R. Bell, A. H. Hamm, S. L. Hinde, W. J. Kaye, and S. A. Neave. Three papers by Dr. Long-staff contain records of observations—chiefly bionomic—on insects met with in various parts of the world. Then follow papers, chiefly of a systematic nature, on Blattidas by Mr. R. Shelford, on “grasshoppers” by Dr. J. L. Hancock, on beetles by Commander J. J. Walker. After these the volume ends, as it began, with bionomical inquiry, from which modern entomologists are seldom far away. We cannot look over a volume like this (reviving our recollections, in some cases, of papers we had read before) without feeling afresh that the entomologist, more, perhaps, than most naturalists, has his finger on the pulse of evolution. The Hope Reports show that he is not unaware of his great opportunities.

The Hope Reports.

Vol. vi. (1906–8). Edited by Prof. E. B. Poulton (Oxford: Printed for private circulation by H. Hart, 1908.)