Dr. Hooker’s prediction that Bates must wait several years before remunerative recognition came was happily falsified, thanks to his large-hearted and keen-eyed publisher.

In the early part of 1864 the assistant-secretaryship of the Royal Geographical Society fell vacant through the premature death of Mr. Greenfield; and the condition into which the Society’s affairs had lapsed, through lack of proper administration, rendered the appointment of an efficient successor of great importance.

“* At this juncture the strong recommendation of Mr. Murray, the publisher, was the fortunate circumstance that determined the election of Mr. Bates of whose merits, otherwise than as an enterprising traveller, as a naturalist of high distinction, and as a charming writer, most of us on the council were ignorant. Mr. Murray assured us, 1n addition to all this, of Mr Bates’s methodical and orderly ways, and of his business-like habits, without which the other qualifications, high and rare as they are, would not have sufficed to make a good seeretary.”’ *

For this, as the future career of the Society showed, geographical science is lastingly indebted to the late John Murray. The absorbing demands on the time of both men caused them common regret at the lessened frequency of their intercourse, but the friendship was broken only by death, Bates always speaking of his publisher and patron—who survived him only a few weeks—in terms of deep affection. The post was no sinecure. Presidents might come and go, and the Zersonnel of the council be changed from time to time, but the assistant-secretary remained the permanent directing mind of the Society;superintending the immense correspondence with travellers and geographers all over the world; the arrangement of even-

Mr. Francis Galton, F.R.S., in Proceedings of Royal Geog. Soc., April 1892.

ing meetings; often the revision, sometimes re-composition, of the papers read; the editing of the Proceedings; and the mass of work incidental to the departure and return of travellers, one and all of whom, English and foreign, went straight to Bates for counsel and help, and never came empty away.

Mr. Clements R. Markham, C.B., F.R.S., who filled the office of honorary secretary for a quarter of a century, thus speaks of Bates’s services to the Society:—

‘* Tt would be difficult to estimate the benefits that the society has derived from the services of Mr. Bates since he became its assistant-secretary in 1864, because they made themselves felt in so many directions and in so many ways. During the six years of his service, when the society’s premises were in Whitehall Place, and the presidency was held by Sir Roderick Murchison, his active assistance was directed to the improvement of the organisation in the office, library, and map-room; to the development of a better system of keeping and presenting the accounts; and to a more popular and more agreeable plan in the preparation of papers to be read at the meetings. By the able and judicious way in which these improvements were conceived and persevered in, Mr. Bates very early showed how admirably he was fitted for the place; and both Sir Roderick and the secretaries relied more and more upon him as their mainstay and support in the work of maintaining and advancing the efficiency and prosperity of the society. Mr. Bates’s usefulness was, perhaps, most felt in the assistance and advice he gave to travellers, and, indeed, to every one who came to him on geographical business. They invariably found in him not only a man ready to impart information and advice, but a trustworthy and sympathising friend. It was, however, in times of difficulty, and on occasions needing the exercise of tact and conciliation, that Mr. Bates’s valuable qualities made themselves most felt by his colleagues. There was such a combination of circumstances at the meeting of the British Association at Bath in 1864, when great pressure of work was ably met, arrangements exactly suited to the needs of the moment were made, and conflicting interests were reconciled, quietly, smoothly, and with admirable judgment. Indeed, the geographical section of the British Association has owed its success and efficiency in a great measure to Mr. Bates during the many years that he has acted as one of its secretaries, During more than twenty years since the removal (of the society’s premises to 1, Savile Row), Mr. Bates has rendered the same services; and each successive president has endorsed the feelings expressed by Sir Roderick Murchison. Ifthe admiration of his friends and colleagues could have been increased in any way, after a long experience of his high qualifications and of his goodness of heart, it would have been by the conscientious way in which he invariably stuck to his work, and refused to allow himself any relaxation, in spite of delicate health and the urgent need for rest which he must have felt. In the work of editing the society’s Zvansactions, which devolved upon Mr. Bates from the period of his first appointment, he was unwearied, and most successful in obtaining information bearing on geographical work from every quarter, and from all parts of the world; he supplied invaluable

hints and suggestions to the authors of papers, and he smoothed over difficulties with never-failing tact. His own rich stores of information were invaluable to all who needed help in their work, and over and over again they enabled him to supply a missing clue in some difficult inquiry, or to elucidate and piece together isolated facts, and show their bearings on each other. In all their intercourse with him, his colleagues, as well as the general body of geographers and travellers, have always been as much impressed by his ability and knowledge, and by the soundness of his judgment, as by that sympathising and kindhearted way of giving his opinion or advice which endeared the late assistant-secretary to all Who came in contact with him.’’*

The following letter has special interest as affording, incidentally, an expression of the feelings with which Bates entered on his new duties:-—

**15, WHITEHALL PLACE, S.W., Yaxuary 28th, 186s.

‘““My DEAR MR. DARWIN,

‘« The receipt of a letter from you was an unlooked-for pleasure. I have had news of your health from time to time, having seized all opportunities of asking from persons likely to know, and had heard lately of your slight improvement. Let us hope it may continue.

“You are very kind to inquire after my personal affairs. I have no doubt Dr. Hooker has kept you well acquainted with what is done and said in natural history circles, and the perusal of the journals, etc., keeps you well informed about the rest. Perhaps there may be a few entomological items bearing upon Darwinian views which have not yet fallen in your way. I was much gratified on receiving the Berlin Berzcht for Entomology, 1862 (you know the natural history reports appear in Wiegmann’s Archives), to find at the very commencement a flattering notice of our paper on the mimetic butterflies. The reports are usually very skilfully and not very mercifully done. Gerstaecker has seized all the essential points of my paper, and repeats them with an evident bias in their favour. Being the highest entomological tribunal, I think you will like to have the testimony of this Bericht to the absence, at any rate, of any important errors in my facts and arguments. *“You will be glad to hear that I like my present position very much. I should have preferred a natural history appointment, but I had no chance of one, and the birth of one sweet little child, with expectation of another, forced upon me cogent arguments for accepting the first thing that offered. I hope besides to do a little in improving this great society, and assisting naturalists in travelling. “Yours sincerely, Soke, We, RATES?

Bates’s power of work was enormous; and so complete was his method, fostered by early business training, that, limited as was his leisure, he did nothing in a hurry; one instance of this was

Proc. Royal Geog. Soc., April 1892, pp. 254, 255.

the neatness and clearness of his writing, even in the roughest memoranda. He had time to spare equally for the visitor who wanted to know the name of an obscure beetle, or the best route across a continent. His original work in classification brought him a host of inquiries from all parts, and of requests from collectors to name their specimens; and to these he responded without fee or reward, save in the advancement of the science he loved. The growth of his collection, largely increased by retaining duplicates of specimens sent to him, caused the absorption of most of his leisure in the work of classification and arrangement, and yet, with these constant demands upon him, he found time to publish his results. Of this unwearying industry the numerous papers in the Journal of the Entomological Society, in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History, in the Entomologist, and other serials, from 1860 until 1891, are evidence.

In 1864 he ‘‘ contributed to the Yournal of Entomology an important paper on the classification of the Rhopalocera, or butterflies, which was an enlargement and elaboration of similar views which he had published three years previously. In entomology, as in most other branches of zoology, systematic classifications are often unavoidable but convenient modes of arrangement for the monographer rather than the elucidation of a natural system on evolutionary principles, though the beauty of a classification is shown when based on those characters which exhibit a progressive modification in structure, or, in other words, exhibit the evolution from a simple to a more specialised type. The epoch-making character of the arrangement proposed by Mr. Bates is best proved by the fact that it has since been universally followed, and this in recent years when a large number of faunistic works on the Rhopfalocera have been written in various lands, and with a wealth of material formerly unknown. This classification reversed the previously understood sequence in the families, and still remains the most philosophical and natural system yet attained in the arrangement of any order of the Insecta. This paper is a model of the philosophical treatment of a purely systematic subject.’’*

The limited time which Bates’s new duties left at his disposal made it no longer possible for him to keep up the study of two such enormous orders as the Lepidoptera and the Coleoptera. As he had practically finished his work of classification of butterflies, he sold his fine collection to Messrs. Godman and Salvin, and thenceforth devoted himself to beetles.| That order of insects, from their

W. L. Distant, in Proc. Royal Geog. Soc., April 1892, p. 252. + M. René Oberthiir, of Rennes, to whom Bates sold all the Longzcorns in the autumn of 1891, has acquired the remainder of the collection, thus securing it, as Bates desired, from being dispersed.

MEMOIR. ' lxxix

structure, habits, distribution, and vast antiquity, throws more light on the past history of the earth than any other organism; and, therefore, this choice, in the hands of a philosophical naturalist of Bates’s stamp, was of the highest advantage to biological science. While describing a large number of new species, especially of the Geodephaga, or carnivorous land-beetles, he was, as the subjoined letter shows, always on the alert to detect subtle modifications, and to seek for the causes by which they had been induced.

HT. W. Bates to Charles Darwin.

““My DEAR MR. DARWIN,—

‘‘It gave me great pleasure this morning tosee a letter in your handwriting, showing that you had recovered your previous tolerably good state of health. The news will be welcome to all our friends when I tell them. ‘« Pray do not send your copy of the He/zconzde paper, as I have still a few left, and will send one to Mr. Walsh, to whom I am indebted for copies of his papers lately arrived. I have read every line of his with great pleasure—just a little deadened perhaps by the diffuseness of his style, and want of closeness in his otherwise just reasoning. “‘T will make use of this opportunity to tell you of a small discovery of mine, lately made in working out the species of a very long genus of Longzcorn Coleoptera. It is with regard to the abrupt and profound modifications in sexual parts between vevy closely allied species. You will perhaps recollect my telling you some time ago of a series of dissections of the male organs in Chrysometide made by a friend of mine, he having found great differences from species to species, and even separated what were previously considered to be varieties, on the ground of modifications of these organs. In my Longicorns the parts in question are the accessory organs; that is, the terminal abdominal segments from which the organ protrudes when necessary. The genus is Colobothea—one of those genera of which so many exist in all orders in which the species seems to have been endlessly multiplied by nature. Nearly all the species can be distinguished by the form of the accessory organs in the sexes, and I have found most profound modifications in what would be otherwise considered as JocaZ varieties. I have no dcubt whatever that the species, on dissemination over a wide area, and breaking up into local varieties, undergo modifications of these organs very readily, and that this fact has operated greatly in the multiplication of species in nature; for it is difficult to conceive the variously formed males of these closely-allied races to be equally adapted to their own females and to the females of their sister races. There is a physical obstacle here in the way of amalgamation with the parent or sister forms of segregated local varieties or races. I shall publish my notes on the subject in the Aznals and Mag. Nat. Hizs?. in the course of my paper on Amazons Lomgicorns. ‘*Yours sincerely,

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