6o8 Color and Pattern and their Uses 



noted that the "great majority [of these injuries to the wings] are inflicted 

 at the anal angle and adjacent hind margin of the hind wing, a considerable 

 number at or near the apical angle of the fore wing, and comparatively few 

 between the points." In this fact, coupled with the fact that the apical 

 and hind angles of the fore and hind wings respectively are precisely those 

 regions of the wings most usually specially marked and prolonged as angular 

 processes or tails, Poulton sees a special significance in the patterns of these 

 wing-parts: he thinks they are "directive marks which tend to divert the 

 attention of an enemy from more vital parts." It is obvious that a butterfly 

 can very well afford to lose the tip or tail of a wing if that loss will save losing 

 a head or abdomen. Poulton sees a "remarkable resemblance of the marks 

 and structures at the anal angle of the hind wing, under .side, in many 

 Lyciunida; to a head with antenn.T and eyes," and recalls that this has been 

 independently noticed by many other observers. "The movements of the 

 hind wings by which the ' tails,' the apparent antennae, are made continually 

 to j)ass and repass each other add very greatly to this resemblance." 



Mimicry. — Of all the theories accounting for the utility of color and 

 pattern, that of mimicry demands at first thought the largest degree of credulity. 

 As a matter of fact, however, the observation and evidence on which it rests 

 are as convincing as are those for almost any of the offered explanations 

 of the usefulness of color-pattern. Although the word mimicry could often 

 have been used aptly in the account of special protective resemblance, it 

 has been reserved for use in connection with a specific kind of imitation, 

 namely, the imitation by an otherwise defenceless insect, one without poison, 

 beak, or sting, and without acrid and distasteful body fluids, of some other 

 specially defended or inedible kind, so that the mimicker is mistaken for 

 the mimicked form and, like this defended or distasteful form, relieved from 

 attack. Many cases of this mimicry may be noted by any field student of 

 entomology. 



Buzz'ng about flowers are to be found various kinds of bees, and also 

 various other kinds of insects, thoroughly bee-like in appearance, but in 

 reality not bees nor, like them, defended by stings. These bee-mimickcrs 

 are mostly flies of various families (Syrphidse, Asilida;, Bombyliida?), and 

 their resemblance to bees is sufficient to and does constantly deceive collectors. 

 We presume, then, that it equally deceives birds and other insect enemies. 

 Wasps, too, are mimicked by other insects; the wasp-like flies, Conopidae, 

 and some of the clear-winged moths, Sesiidas (Fig. 794), are extremely wasp- 

 like in general seeming. 



The distasteful monarch butterfly, Atwsia plexippiis, wide-spread and 

 abundant — a "successful" butterfly, whose success undoubtedly largely 

 depends on its inedibility in both larval and imaginal stage — is mimicked 

 with extraordinary fidelity of detail by the viceroy, Basilarchia archippus 



