MIMICRY AMONGST THE LEPIDOrTEEA. 81 



counterfeited them in the former locality, under a dress- 

 changed to correspond with the altered liveries of the 

 species they mimicked. One cannot help concluding these 

 imitations to be intentional, and that Nature has some 

 motive in their production. ... I believe these imita- 

 tions are of the same nature as those in which an insect or 

 Uzard is coloured and marked so as to resemble the soil, 

 leaf, or bark on which it lives; the resemblance serving ta 

 conceal the creatures from the prying eyes of their enemies ; 

 or, if they are predacious species, serving them as a disguise^ 

 to enable them to approach their prey. When an insect/ 

 instead of a dead or inorganic substance, mimics another 

 species of its own order, and does not prey, or is not para- 

 sitic, may it not be inferred that the mimicker is subject to 

 a persecution by insectivorous animals from which its model 

 is free ? ... In the present instance it is not very 

 clear what property the Callithea possesses to render it less 

 liable to persecution than the Agrias, except it be that it 

 has a strong odour somewhat resembling vanilla, which the 

 Agrias is destitute of. This odour becomes very powerful 

 when the insect is roughly handled or pinched ; and if it 

 serves as a protection to the Callithea, it would explain why 

 the Agrias is assimilated to it in colours," 



This suggestion of Bates as to the odour of the Callithea 

 supplies the key to the mystery. We find, even in an 

 examination of the comparatively scanty insect-fauna of our 

 islands, numerous instances in which, either on account of 

 taste or odour, an insect is distasteful to its inveterate foes, 

 and in this fact finds its protection and well-being. Amongst 

 these may be mentioned Euclielia jacohece., Abraxas gros- 

 sulariaia, and Chrysopa perla. But if in our temperate 

 climate, by no means over-peopled by predacious birds and 

 insects, there is need for such a device, how much more in 



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