Packakd.] LNSECTS as MIMICS. 281 



Mimicry of other Insects. — We now come to instances 

 wliere insects resemble others of different genera, families 

 and orders. They are exceedingly numerous, and entomolo- 

 gists have been familiar with some of them for at least a 

 century. Struck with the fact that as a rule the insects 

 which were mimicked were higher in the scale than the mim- 

 ickers, tlie writer attempted in an essay published in 18G3* 

 to classify some of the known facts, adding some supposed 

 to be new, and to give a partial explanation of them. In the 

 light of the facts published a year previous to this by Mr. 

 Bates,t and afterwards by Mr. Wallace J and JMr. Darwin, § 

 I am inclined to the belief that the resemblance in pattern 

 and color between insects belonging to different groups is 

 probably due to causes more fundamental than natural and 

 sexual selection, and reaching possibly farther back in geo- 

 logical time. I will quote the following passage from my 

 essay : 



" If we consider the Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera and Dip- 

 tera by themselves, in the order in which Latreille has placed 

 them, we shall find these three groups full of reciprocal anal- 

 ogies. Certain forms in the one suborder leap over their 

 neighboring suborder to find their analogues in one a tliird 

 removed ; or again, we see analogous forms between the two 

 higher groups, leaving the lowest for a while isolated ; or on 

 the other hand the two lower groups are thus united, leaving 

 the highest one standing by itself. For example, the clear- 

 winged Sesia imitates the humble-bee in its form and flight ; 

 the different species of JEgerians (Fig. 219, yEgeria tipuli- 



*Oii Syntlictio Tyi)es in Insects. Journal of the Boston Society of Natural 

 Hi tory. 18(i3. 



til. W. Bates. Contributions to the Insect Fauna of the Amazon Valley. 

 Lepidoptera: IleliconiilM. Transactions of the Linnajan Society, vol.23, ]8f)2. 



t A. U. Wallace. Mimicry, and other rrotcctivo Ilesemblanccs aniong Ani- 

 mals. Westminster Kcview. July, 18(;7. Reprinted in "Contributions to the 

 Tlicory of Natural Select-on." 1870. 



§Cl»arle9 Darwin. The Descent of Mm, and Selection in Ilclation to Sex, 

 1871. 



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