68 Journal New York Entomological Society. [Voi. v. 



quite a large number of zoologists who both work and think, who do 

 not believe that natural selection is adequate to explain all of the phe- 

 nomena that come to the notice of the naturalist, and as a leader 

 of those who hold this view, we have that venerable thinker, Herbert 

 Spencer. It is clear enough that natural selection will maintain or even 

 perfect what has already been begun, but that it can set the machinery 

 of protective mimicry in motion — can bring a case of protective mim- 

 icry or coloration into existence, seems extremely doubtful. In the first 

 place, we must remember that "self-preservation is the first law of na- 

 ture," even in man. No human being will voluntarily take his or her 

 own life unless mentally deranged, or as a sacrifice to some great and 

 important principle, or to save the lives of others. Old and battle-tried 

 soldiers, whose acts of bravery have become known from one side of the 

 world to the other, have acknowledged that the impulse to break and 

 run, when first going into battle, had each time to be overcome. If self- 

 preservation is the first law of nature, then fear and the sense of pain 

 are the police powers, so to speak, that enforce the law. The soldier 

 who drops his gun and runs away, instead of facing the enemy, has al- 

 lowed the fear of pain or death to overcome his sense of duty and he 

 seeks a place of greater safety ; seeks to preserve his life. Among all 

 animal life below man, we find a different condition to exist, in that the 

 whole aim and object of life is to reproduce. The same phenomena 

 may be observed, even among plants, the whole of the remaining vitality 

 of an injured tree or a girdled vine, being exhausted in producing a few 

 seeds or seed inclosing fruit. In fact, almost a parallel may be observed 

 to some extent among consumptive men and women. Among lower 

 animal life, unless the young require the protecting care of the parents, 

 as soon as this duty of reproduction is accomplished death, generally 

 speaking, occurs, although among insects the period of reproduction may 

 vary from a few hours to several years, according to species. Protection, 

 in the egg stage, is usually accomplished, where such is needed, by the 

 mother insect in her selection of a place of oviposition, but both herself 

 and the larvse may need protection from natural enemies, and such pro- 

 tection may result from a close resemblance to other protected species, 

 or to inanimate objects, thus deceiving, to a greater or less extent, the 

 natural enemies that threaten their destruction. It often occurs that the 

 form and color of the adult or of the larva is such as to afford protec- 

 tion, but there are many cases, where, without the assuming of certain 

 positions, to represent forms not preyed upon, or inanimate objects, like 

 twigs, lichens or portions of flowers, or where peculiar movements are 



