1915] on Mimicry and Butterflies o79 



often abandon a Charaxes after spending perhaps twenty minutes in 

 the vain attempt to remove the wings. Repeated observations have 

 convinced him that, with alertness and power of flight, fighting 

 weight and toughness of integument, Charaxes, in spite of its 

 palatability, gives to its smaller enemies such an unpleasant ex- 

 perience that thev will tend to avoid a repetition of it, except 

 under stress of hunger, and that on this account the mimetic re- 

 semblance is advantageous. It should be added that the behaviour 

 of large and powerful insectivorous birds show's that Charaxes is 

 undoubtedly palatable. Furthermore, Swynnerton finds that the 

 thorax, after removal of its integument, is much appreciated by the 

 smaller birds. 



Mimicry in Charaxes is confined to the upper surface of the 

 wings, and is principally, although by no means exclusively, mani- 

 fested by the females. It would be inappropriate to draw up a list 

 of species on the present occasion, but reference must be made to the 

 wonderful example of C. etheodes, of which some females mimic the 

 males, others the females, others again both males and females, of 

 larger species. In spite of all this mimicry, etheocles is one of the 

 most abundant species in Africa, and its non-mimetic male is itself 

 mimicked by a still smaller, and probably weaker, species on 

 Ruwenzori. These facts, as well as the mimetic approach between 

 the larger species that are mimicked by the smaller, are evidence that 

 the resemblance is an advantageous advertisement of protective 

 qualities held in common, although in different degrees, by models 

 and mimics — that it is Synaposematic or Mullerian Mimicry. 



[E.B. P.] 



