IX 
WARNING COLORATION AND MIMICRY 
261 
is a group of Curculionidae, forming the genus Paehyrhynchus, 
in which all the species are adorned with the most brilliant 
metallic colours, banded and spotted in a curious manner, 
and are very smooth and hard. Other genera of Curculionidae 
(Desmidophorus, Alcides), which are usually very differently 
coloured, have species in the Philippines which mimic the 
Pachyrhynchi; and there are also several longicorn beetles 
(Aprophata, Doliops, Acronia, and Agnia), which also mimic 
them. Besides these, there are some longicorns and cetonias 
which reproduce the same colours and markings; and there 
is even a cricket (Scepastus pachyrhynchoides), which has 
taken on the form and peculiar coloration of these beetles 
in order to escape from enemies, which then avoid them as 
uneatable. 1 The figures on the opposite page exhibit several 
other examples of these mimicking insects. 
Innumerable other cases of mimicry occur among tropical 
insects; but we must now pass on to consider a few of the 
very remarkable, but much rarer instances, that are found 
among the higher animals. 
Mimicry among the Vertebrata. 
Perhaps the most remarkable cases yet known are those of 
certain harmless snakes which mimic poisonous species. The 
genus Elaps, in tropical America, consists of poisonous snakes 
which do not belong to the viper family (in which are included 
the rattlesnakes and most of those which are poisonous), and 
which do not possess the broad triangular head which charac¬ 
terises the latter. They have a peculiar style of coloration, 
consisting of alternate rings of red and black, or red, black, 
and yellow, of different widths and grouped in various ways 
in the different species; and it is a style of coloration which 
does not occur in any other group of snakes in the world. 
But iu the same regions are found three genera of harmless 
snakes, belonging to other families, some few sjiecies of which 
mimic the poisonous Elaps, often so exactly that it is with 
difficulty one can be distinguished from the other. Thus 
Elaps fulvius in Guatemala is imitated by the harmless Plio- 
cerus equalis ; Elaps corallinus in Mexico is mimicked by the 
1 ' Comjite-Rendu de la Societe Entomologique de Belgaue, series ii., No. 59, 
1878. 
