5 72 MILLER— MIMICR V 



only an expert listener will know the meaning. At others the 

 continuous Babel of sounds will ensure the attention of the most 

 incurious (cf. Gabble-ratchet). It is now well known that these 

 noises proceed from migrating birds, which, it is supposed, having 

 lost their way, are attracted by the glare of the street-lamps ; but far 

 too little has been observed to remove the obscurity that in a double 

 sense surrounds them and to enable us to come to fiu-ther definite 

 conclusion. It must be added also that such a concourse has been 

 noticed where the attraction of light did not exist, for Lord Lilford 

 has recorded (Ibis, 1865, p. 176) how that once at Corfu he was 

 startled by an uproar as if all the feathered inhabitants of the 

 great Acherusian Marsh had met in conflict overhead, but he could 

 form no conception of what birds produced the greater part of it. 



MILLER, a name given to the grey males of Circus cyaneus and 

 C. cineraceus (Harrier) in days Avhen both were common; and 

 also locally to the Whitethroat (cf. Germ. Miillerchen and Dutch 

 Molenaartje). 



MIMICRY, with the prefix unconscious, which in every 

 department of Zoology should be always expressed or understood,^ 

 signifies the more or less complete likeness, in colouring or form 

 or in both, which one creature bears to another, so that in 

 some cases one may easily be mistaken for the other, though 

 the afiinity between them may be very remote. It is probably 

 among Birds that the earliest example of this kind of Mimicry 

 was recognized, for Aristotle (Hist. An. vi. 7) noticed the resem- 

 blance of a Cuckow to a Hawk,^ while among insects many 

 cases have long been known,^ and generally spoken of as in- 

 stances of " mimetic analogy," whatever that phrase might mean ; 

 but, as Mr. Wallace has said (Darivinism, p. 240), "the subject was 

 looked upon as one of the inexplicable curiosities of nature, till Mr. 

 Bates studied the phenomenon among the butterflies of the Amazon, 

 and on his return home gave the first rational explanation of it," 



^ Except perhaps in relation to Song, but this is uncertain. 



2 Hence sprang the belief, as old as his time (though discountenanced by 

 him) and hardly yet given up in some places, that the Cuckow became a Hawk 

 in winter, resuming its more harmless character in summer ; and of course all 

 observers know that this belief is still shared by little birds, who on that 

 account " mob " the Cuckow whenever it appears. 



^ These are far too niunerous to be cited here, but reference may be given to 

 a few of the older examples, as so many people think the discovery to be recent : 

 Linnfeus included the Homopterous Aleyrodes proletella in the Lepidopterous 

 subgenus Tinea ; some remarkable instances are given by Kirby and Spence 

 (Introd. Entomol. ii. p. 223), who did not hesitate to assign deception as the 

 motive of the counterfeit presentment, though of course accounting for it in a 

 way very different from that now generally accepted ; and Prof. Westwood men- 

 tions {Trans. Linn. Soc. xviii. pp. 410, 411) others. 



