1904.] PACKARD— ORIGIN OF IMARKIXGS OF ORGANISMS. 429 



yellow, arranged in certain definite patterns. Of eight species of 

 Elaps and the same number of species of harmless snakes, the latter 

 *' mimic " the Elaps. 



But in India where three poisonous genera are mimicked by three 

 harmless genera, the poisonous, however, prey on the mimics ; 

 they are not protected except from birds. 



lO. MULLERIAN MiMICRY NOT APPLICABLE IN CERTAIN CASES 



EVEN IN Butterflies. 



Mr. G. F. Matthews, visiting the Solomon Islands, writes: ^'A 

 very interesting case of mimicry occurred here. A dark brown 

 Euploea with broad white outer margins, and Danais insolata with 

 markings almost identical, were fairly plentiful ; but, to add to the 

 confusion of things, a Hypolimnas, which on the wing might have 

 been mistaken for either, was flying with them. Which mimicked 

 which it was difficult to say, or the reason of the mimicry, as all 

 three genera are avoided by birds both in the larva and perfect 

 stages. The theories of Miiller and of Bates have been strongly 

 maintained by ultra-Darwinians ; but there is on the part of some 

 who have seen how seldom birds seem to care to chase butterflies of 

 any kind a feeling that the theories in question have but a limited 

 basis of fact." 



Sir George F. Hampson discusses in Nature what he aptly calls 

 *' museum mimicry." "It was," he says, "recently stated by 

 Colonel Swinhoe that Danaid butterflies are mimicked, as a means 

 of protection, by three genera of the Chalcosia group of moths." 

 But it appears that the latter secrete strong acrid juices, as does the 

 whole family to which they belong, while they are so distasteful 

 that hardly any other animals will touch them ; their habits too are 

 very different from those of butterflies, and no one, he says, who 

 knows them could possibly believe in protective mimicry between 

 the two groups. 



Ti. Indifference Shown to Butterflies by Birds. 



It appears to be the case in Europe that birds actually reject or 

 at least are indifferent to butterflies, and this seems to be the case 

 in the United States and Canada, judging from the facts now 

 known, and my own slight observations. Birds will as if in play 

 dart after butterflies, as they will after a flying leaf, but will not 

 devour them, while they will catch and eat moths. 



