716 THE BUTTERFLIES OF NEW ENGLAND. 



published, where not only have two kinds of African swallow-tail but- 

 terflies, one with, the other without, tails, long supposed to be widely 

 distinct species, been now proved to be male and female, the female 

 departing from the type to mimic a Euploeid butterfly ; but the male is 

 found to have no less than three distinct wives, each mimickino- a different 

 kind of Euploeid characteristic of the region inhabited by mocker and 

 mocked, and each very different from the husband ; while an allied male, 

 formerly thought to be the same as the preceding, keeps a similar harem, 

 similarly mimetic of species of Euploeinae prevailing in its districts, and, 

 besides, has in one place at least a concubine which is not at all mimetic. 

 Surely the play of mimicry can go little further. 



But in all this arises a new diflficulty. How is it that mimetic qualities, 

 which in a given locality breed so true, are inherited by one sex only? 

 AVhy do the males escape? Here the question is, not, why are the females 

 mimetic? but rather, why are the males not mimetic? To this no satisfac- 

 tory answer has yet been given. It has been attributed to sexual selection, 

 the females being supposed to be of a conservative frame of mind, and ad- 

 mitting no variation in their consorts ; but this it would be diflftcult to 

 prove, or, it seems to me, to render very probable. 



This, however, is the view of it taken by Belt, who remarks that " it is 

 supported by the fact that many of the males of the mimetic Leptalides 

 have the upper lialf of the lower wing of a pure white, whilst all the rest 

 of the wings is barred and spotted with black, red or yellow, like the spe- 

 cies they mimic. The females have not this white patch, and the males 

 usually conceal it by covering it with the upper wing, so that I cannot 

 imagine its being of any other use to them than as an attraction in court- 

 ship, when they exhibit it to the females, and thus gratify their deep-seated 

 preference for the normal color of the order [tribe] to which the Lepta- 

 lides belong." (Naturalist in Nicaragua, 385.) 



Still another difficulty besets the subject, — a difficulty in part recognized 

 by Bates. It has been the subject of much discussion, but on the prin- 

 ciples supported above is far more easily disposed of. Bates found not only 

 that the distasteful Heliconoid butterflies were mimicked by those which 

 were in evident need of protection, from the fact of their being greedily 

 eaten by insectivorous animals, but that there were cases of mimicry quite as 

 close among the Heliconoid butterflies themselves. Numerous instances of 

 the same kind have since been recognized in other parts of the world. 

 Here both mocked and mockers were protected by nauseousness, and it 

 was by no means clear to him how any advantage, the fundamental cause 

 of variation of this kind, was to be gained by such imitation. The resem- 

 blance was so close that, according to his own words, " species belonging 

 to distinct genera have been confounded, owing to their being almost iden- 

 tical in colors and markings ; in fact, many of them can scarcely be dis- 



