108 MIMICRY, AND OTHER PROTECTIVE 



Objections to Mr. Bates' Theory of Mimicry. 



Having now completed our survey of the most pro- 

 minent and remarkable cases of mimicry that have yet 

 been noticed, we must say something of the objections 

 that have been made to the theory of their production 

 given by Mr. Bates, and which we have endeavoured to 

 illustrate and enforce in the preceding pages. Three 

 counter explanations have been proposed. Professor 

 Westwood admits the fact of the mimicry and its pro- 

 bable use to the insect, but maintains that each species 

 was created a mimic for the purpose of the protection 

 thus afforded it. Mr. Andrew Murray, in his paper on 

 the " Disguises of Nature," inclines to the opinion that 

 similar conditions of food and of surrounding circum- 

 stances have acted in some unknown way to produce the 

 resemblances ; and when the subject was discussed before 

 the Entomological Society of London, a third objection 

 was added that heredity or the reversion to ancestral 

 types of form and colouration, might have produced 

 many of the cases of mimicry. 



Against the special creation of mimicking species 

 there are all the objections and difficulties in the way 

 of special creation in other cases, with the addition of 

 a few that are peculiar to it. The most obvious is, 

 that we have gradations of mimicry and of protective 

 resemblance a fact which is strongly suggestive of a 

 natural process having been at work. Another very 

 serious objection is, that as mimicry has been shown 

 to be useful only to those species and groups which 



