PROTECTIVE MIMICRY. 415 



is to depend, it will be one of two types, resembling the individuals 

 of a wholly different species. But the pupse of larva; hatched 

 from the same brood of eggs result indifferently in males and 

 in females of all three types. 



From the foregoing remarks you will have gathered that, among 

 butterflies, it is generally in the females and not the males of a 

 species that you will find the mimicry of another species. 



The reason for this is obvious, in as much as it is the females 

 which lay the eggs that are of the most importance to the species 

 in perpetuating its existence. 



In the instance last given, you will have noticed that the female 

 of Papilio polytes does not resemble an individual of another genus 

 protected by its bad smell or taste, as is the case with the two 

 species of Hypolimnas and those of Papilio first mentioned; 

 resembling Vanais clirysippus, Euploea core, and other species of 

 Dauais. But the two types of fertile females of Papilio polytes 

 resemble individuals of other species only of the same genus Papilio, 

 and whether these other species of P. hector and P. aristolochice are 

 protected by any bad smell or taste seems doubtful, most of the 

 Papiliones being certainly edible. There must, however, be a reason 

 for the resemblance in this case also. If it be not the same as in the 

 other instances, possibly the more brilliant coloration in the fertile 

 female is to make them more conspicuous to the males of their own 

 species, and thus ensure its perpetuation. In one sense this would 

 also be a protective mimicry, though it would be protective rather 

 indirectly of the species than directly of the individual. 



The few instances I have mentioned have proved suggestive 

 of several interesting questions which are still awaiting a correet 

 solution, and the whole subject of Indian butterflies will be found 

 a wide field for enquiry, fertile in important questions of great 

 interest, not to the entomologist alone, but to the student of 

 Natural History in all its branches. Does not, for instance, the 

 establishment of the fact of the mimicry by one species of another 

 protected by its evil smell or taste from attack by its enemies, point 

 to the conclusion that there must be in these enemies some faculty 

 of remembering and communicating individual experiences and of 

 profiting by the instruction of others ? For, unless the results of 



