Mimicry in Birds 



taken it for a tern at first sight, so similar is 

 the colour to that water-bird's, and so different 

 the slow swing of the pinions from the sharp 

 decisive stroke one associates with the flight of 

 most hawks. 



As every falconer knows that half the battle 

 is to get the hawk near enough to the quarry 

 to prevent the latter having a long start, it seems 

 very obvious that these deceptive birds of prey 

 profit by their resemblance to more or less 

 innocent species just as much as, in another 

 way, appear to do the birds mentioned above 

 as resembling creatures less liable to attack than 

 the majority of birds. 



As to the method by which these remarkable 

 likenesses have been produced, I cannot agree 

 with the theory current with regard to the simi- 

 lar cases in insects, that the resemblance of the 

 mimic to its model was only slight at first, and 

 was gradually perfected by the escape from 

 destruction of those specimens which exhibited 

 it in the greatest degree, until, by the continual 

 preservation of such and their descendants, the 

 resemblance was, so to speak, bred into the 

 mimicking species. This seems to me to require 

 too many mistakes on the part of the other 

 creatures concerned, and I much prefer Darwin's 

 view, that mimicry must have commenced between 



forms pretty much alike to start with, so that 



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