BE SEMBLANCES AMONG ANIMALS 3 11 



butterfly with folded wings to a leaf more remarkable than the appear- 

 ance of a human face on the back of a crab? For the contrast, when 

 dissected, would give us in the one case the characters — leaf-shape, 

 color, midrib, reversed markings (veins) on one side of midrib, con- 

 cealed legs and antenna 3 , " petiole," and fungus-like patches, as op- 

 posed, in the case of the crab, to the equally complicated characters — 

 human face, color, young, oriental, primitive Japanese, drowned. It 

 is only fair to conclude, therefore, that if a meaningless variation can 

 produce the Taira crab, it might equally well have produced Kallima.* 

 The conclusion, indeed, that Kallima formed the apex of a series of 

 selected changes, is, on our present evidence as to the habits of this 

 insect, hardly different in kind from the assumption that the present 

 perfection of the skull on the death's head moth is the result of selective 



f\ \ 



r 



Fig. to. Fruit of the Garden Snap-dragon, Antirrhinum. 



changes, through whose agency this form came gradually to be avoided 

 and thus secured immunity from, by superstitious man, an important 

 enemy ! In fact, in this case, there is actually a stronger body of 

 evidence that the moth is avoided by man than that Kallima is over- 

 looked by birds. 



In a word, it is a fair conclusion that our notions of protective 

 resemblance and mimicry are carried in numerous instances farther 

 than the law allows. And one does not have to go far afield for cases 

 in point. Thus- the snake's head which is pictured on the wing tip of 

 an East Indian moth, Attaots atlas, does not strike one as a convincing 

 ease of mimicry, in spite of Weismann's arguments. It is true that 

 the snake is strikingly portrayed, both in color, poise and expression, 

 and we will readily admit that it might give a wholesome jolt to some 

 enemy of the moth which happened to see it just at the right angle. 

 But the picture in this instance is not more striking than many of the 

 meaningless resemblances we have quoted (e. g., the French poodle 

 pictured on the wing of Colias), and I think we may reasonably de- 

 mand definite experimental proof before accepting the " mimicry." In 

 certain other instances one can not feel assured that the resemblance 

 is of actual value to the " protected " form. As an instance of this, 



4 In this connection, cf. a note in Science, Vol. XVI., p. 832, in which the 

 present "writer comments upon the scantiness of evidence as to the protective 

 value of the characters of Kallima, and notes the appearance of this insect on 

 and near leaves which it in no wav resembled. 



