76 Journal New York Entomological Society. [Voj. v. 



complete. On one occasion I found several eggs of a parasitic fly, one 

 of the Tachinae, placed among the bases of the legs, where the enemy 

 could by no possibility have placed them had the caterpillar not occu- 

 pied the peculiar position that it assumes when disturbed, thus showing 

 that the deception was not complete. 



An interesting point is here brought out, as, if all individuals at- 

 tacked died, there would be no progeny and, therefore, no transmission 

 of acquired life preserving consciousness, this could only be brought 

 about by individuals that were attacked and escaped death. A new 

 enemy would be more crude and bungling in its work, and thus allow 

 of a greater number of escapes. 



Now, in all of these phenomena we have form and color, supplemented 

 by action, the object of all of which, taken together, is the protection 

 of life. Indeed, what else have these organisms to protect ? And of 

 what service would life be to an organism, without intelligence enough, 

 to, in a measure, enable the possessor thereof to protect that life ? In 

 all of these actions and movements, do we not have the same kind of 

 consciousness, intelligence and volition, that we do in the case of a bird 

 building a nest, with the expectations of laying its eggs in that nest and 

 rearing its young? Are not all of these positions assumed, and move- 

 ments made, with the sole aim of protecting life — continuing to live ? 

 Did not life and a life protecting intelligence co-exist, in the beginning, 

 in some primitive organism, and was not this primitive, live-protecting 

 intelligence, developed side by side with form and color, until the 

 present conditions of affairs has been the result ? The term " protective 

 mimicry," is misapplied when used to designate this developed con- 

 dition, because that term implies the personation of different objects, by 

 different individuals of the same species, at the same time and in the 

 same exact locality, which is not the case. But, though the same 

 species may "mimic" different species in different localities, or differ- 

 ent sexes may "mimic" different species, or one sex "mimic" and 

 another not, yet these conditions cannot be changed to meet any sudden 

 change of environment. Not only will the forms, colors and colora- 

 tions continue long after the enemy to be protected from has dis- 

 appeared, but as Mr. Distant has shown ("A Naturalist in the Trans- 

 vaal," p. 66,) the " mimicing " form may continue to " mimic," even 

 when the mimiced form has fallen far below it in point of numbers and 

 becomes almost or even quite extinct. 



It was Mr. Bates who wrote in his " The Naturalist on the Amazon," 

 that " on the wing of the butterfly is written, as on a tablet, the story 



