198 INSTANCES OF PROTECTIVE SIMULATION. 



and destroyed before the lesson is acquired. The closer 

 this resemblance between two or more species, the more 

 probably will one be mistaken for another ; the number of 

 each kind sacrificed to inexperience will be reduced, and 

 the amount of protection afforded to the different species 

 will be greater as the total destruction will be divided 

 amongst them ; for a young bird, for instance, having 

 experienced the nauseousness of one of these attractive 

 and easily recognized insects, will avoid attacking another 

 of similar appearance, although it may not be of the same 

 species or even of the same genus. 



Many of the Heliconi?up, for example, of different species, 

 are very similar in shape, marking and colours ; and there 

 are often found in the localities which they frequent several 

 different species of the Danaince which very closely simulate 

 them in every way. A few of these are illustrated in 

 Plate III. There are shewn ten pairs of butterflies, each pair 

 (one insect above and the other beneath it) very closely alike 

 but of different sub-families, having no relationship whatever 

 to each other. All the insects shewn in this plate are 

 highly coloured and strongly marked in black, orange, 

 yellow, brown and white, and are large and strikingly 

 handsome insects ; all are known to be distasteful to, 

 and avoided by, the lusectivora and they afford an 

 interesting series of examples of the mutual protection 

 due to simulation and superficial resemblance in inedible 

 insects. 



Tropical South America, where Miiller made his 

 observations, is rich in producing, from numerous regions, 

 instances of this kind of protection in butterflies. In 

 Honduras there are found several species of HeliconincB and 

 Daiuxincc each of which resembles the others. The fore 

 wings are coloured a deep sepia, almost black, with white 

 or pale yellow spots, the hind wings being light chocolate 

 with lines, spots and borders of sepia (Fig. 5). In the 



