A STUDY OF MIMICRY 13 



out tails, long supposed to be widely distinct 

 species, been proved to be male and female, the 

 female departing from the type to mimic a Eu- 

 ploeid butterfly, but the male is found to have no 

 less than three distinct wives, each mimicking 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 pre- 

 ceding, 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 farther. 



But in all this arises a new difficulty. How is it 

 that mimetic qualities, which in a given locality 

 breed so true, are inherited by one sex only? 

 Why 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 sat- 

 isfactory answer has yet been given. It has been 

 attributed to sexual selection, the females beinsf 

 supposed to be of a conservative frame of mind, 

 and admitting no variation in their consorts ; but 

 this it would be difficult to prove, or, it seems to 

 me, to render very probable. 



