240 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN BIRDS 



The mimicry theory is very enticing ; indeed, it is so 

 enticing that those who hold it, as, for example. Pro- 

 fessor Poulton, of Oxford, seem to think that there 

 must be something wrong with the evidence opposed 

 to it. 



I assert that it is not the evidence against the 

 theory, but the theory itself that is wrong. 



The objections to the hypothesis are many and 

 weighty. Finn and I summarised most of them in 

 The Making of Species. 



Two of the objections appear to be insuperable. 



The likeness cannot be of much use until it is fairly 

 strong. How, then, is the beginning of the resemblance 

 to be explained ? 



In order that natural selection should have produced 

 these astounding resemblances, it is necessary that 

 butterflies should be preyed on very largely by birds ; 

 but all the evidence goes to show that birds very 

 rarely eat butterflies. In the course of some ten years 

 spent in India I have not seen butterflies chased by 

 birds on more than a dozen occasions. Similarly, 

 Colonel Yerbury, during six years* observation in 

 India and Ceylon, can record only about six cases of 

 birds capturing, or attempting to capture, butterflies. 

 Colonel C. T. Bingham, in Burma, states that between 

 1878 and 1891 he on two occasions witnessed the 

 systematic hawking of butterflies by birds, although he 

 observed on other occasions some isolated cases. 



Nor is the evidence, as regards India, confined to 

 the experience of the casual observer. Mr. C. W. 

 Mason, when supernumerary entomologist to the 



