VI 



does not in any way affect its vital functions. This is one of the many points 

 on which the doctrine of evolution has shed light. From the old point of 

 view, which regarded the different forms of animate beings as to many 

 separate creations, these had to be considered in all their subordinate parts as 

 expressions of a definite plan of creation and therefore involving a definite use 

 for them, of useless relics there could be no question in this connection. Now, 

 the principle of evolutionary growth and decay, as I have already mentioned 

 on pages xix and xx of the Introduction to my third monograph, although 

 at the present day almost universally admitted, is in reality still completely 

 misunderstood by a great number of naturalists, whose explanation of vital 

 phenomena actually still proceeds from the old point of view. My explanation 

 in 1905 of the origin of the so-called tails was attacked as completely erroneous 

 by a German systematic lepidopterist who entirely misapprehended the principles 

 of evolution and who represented these appendages as organs of utility in the 

 flight of Lepidoptera. I will not here further reply to this attack ; in my 

 book " Noch einmal tnimicry, selection, danvinismus" I have already dealt with 

 the subject and merely refer to it in order to demonstrate how little the 

 principle of evolution is understood. The same ideas have manifested themselves 

 in the mimicry-fantasy where, assuming in a similar manner a priori that these 

 tails must serve a useful purpose, this usefulness was duly discovered. Some 

 small Lycaenas have the habit, when first settling, of rubbing the secondaries 

 one over the other, the motion being apparently more or less rotary, when 

 naturally the short thread shaped tails of these wings also come into motion. 

 In this manner they were supposed to imitate the antennae, thereby inducing 

 the enemies preying on these small butterflies to direct their attacks upon that 

 part of the body instead of on the head, enabling the insect to escape with 

 only the lower extremities of their wings slightly damaged. This is nothing 

 but a typical mimicry-fantasy and adopted from the original inventor by later 

 observers. It originated, I believe, with Wallace, the fact itself having been 

 observed by Trimen; on page 564 et se(]. o^ " BuUerJIy kiuifing in many lands", 

 published in 1912, it is repeated and elaborated. This still unexplained movement 

 of the secondaries I have myself frequently observed, but with the utmost 

 stretch of imagination I have never been able to see the fancied resemblance ; 

 these tails do not bear the slightest likeness to antennae. Only an observer 

 obsessed with the ideas of the theory of mimicry could detect any such 

 similitude ; and the predatory insects which prey upon these small Lycaenas 

 will scarcely be credited with this infatuation. 



A study of the Papilionidae clearly demonstrates that the length and form 

 of these appendages may not only differ pretty considerably in individuals of 



