258 HALF HOURS WITH INSECTS. [Packard. 



iciy. The manifold disguises are worn unwittingly by the 

 brute, the bird, or insect or moUusk, but there is no less an 

 underlying design in nature, and some useful end subserved. 

 That everything which exists lias some use in the world may 

 be regarded as an axiom. The savage knows that himself 

 and his offspring will starve unless he by strategem and 

 through some disguise can kill his game. Unless the insect 

 protects itself from harm b}^ imitating some natural object, 

 or other insect whicli enjoys immunity from the enemies pe- 

 culiar to the mimic, it and its species will die out. All the 

 disguises in nature are, then, for a manifest utilitarian pur- 

 pose, and we shall see that each species is by some pecu- 

 liarity in its form, or color, or movements, at one or another 

 critical period in its life, protected and preserved in the 

 struggle for existence. It often happens that the weaker 

 species are overlooked by their enemies, while on the other 

 hand the predaceous species are as often enabled to approach 

 their prey through the disguise they have assumed. 



But it will be seen that the ultimate fact in this matter of 

 mimicry is, as insisted on by Messrs. Darwin and "Wallace, 

 the advantage to the species. It will not unlikely occur to 

 the unbiassed reader that the result of this law of mimicry 

 is rather tlie lireservation of forms already established, than 

 the origin of new ones. 



I shall assume as true that quadrupeds, birds, and insects, 

 and the lower animals as well, are deceived and protected in 

 turn b}' the disguises thc}^ assume, and that the end is a 

 utilitarian one; while I disagree with the conclusions of 

 those who believe that species originate from mimicry, as- 

 suming that if some species owe their preservation to this 

 cause, they may have originated from the same natural 

 causes as their unsuccessful fellows whom mimicr}-, or rather 

 the want of it, failed to preserve. The fossiliferous strata 

 of our globe are filled with the remains of organisms which 

 have perished in unsuccessful attempts to survive in the 



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