RESEMBLANCES AMONG ANIMALS. 109 



are rare and probably dying out, and would cease to 

 have any effect should the proportionate abundance of 

 the two species be reversed, it follows that on the 

 special-creation theory the one species must have been 

 created plentiful, the other rare ; and, notwithstanding 

 the many causes that continually tend to alter the pro- 

 portions of species, these two species must have always 

 been specially maintained at their respective propor- 

 tions, or the very purpose for which they each received 

 their peculiar characteristics would have completely 

 failed. A third difficulty is, that although it is very 

 easy to understand how mimicry may be brought 

 about by variation and the survival of the fittest, it 

 seems a very strange thing for a Creator to protect 

 an animal by making it imitate another, when the 

 very assumption of a Creator implies his power to 

 create it so as to require no such circuitous protection. 

 These appear to be fatal objections to the application 

 of the special-creation theory to this particular case. 

 The .other two supposed explanations, which may 

 be shortly expressed as the theories of " similar con- 

 ditions" and of " heredity," agree in making mimicry, 

 where it exists, an adventitious circumstance not ne- 

 cessarily connected with the well-being of the mimick- 

 ing species. But several of the most striking and 

 most constant facts which have been adduced, directly 

 contradict both these hypotheses. The law that mi- 

 micry is confined to a few groups only is one of these, 

 for " similar conditions " must act more or less on all 

 groups in a limited region, and " heredity " must 



