IN BUTTERFLIES 137 



or whether on the whole it will alight now or 

 not! 



So one might go through the whole catalogue of 

 the ways and lives of butterflies to find that the 

 great majority were ways and lives not of one but 

 of many, — inherited traits, become fixed in their 

 lives by constant repetition. Most frequently they 

 are generic habits rather than specific, often tribal 

 traits, or even sub-family tricks ; this in itself 

 shows that habit as a general thing must be older 

 than the wing pattern. But if anything more 

 were needed to show it, it would appear by the facts 

 of mimicry, where pattern plainly shows a far 

 greater pliancy to the summons of natural selection 

 than can be affirmed of habit ; and the numerous 

 cases of protective resemblance tell equally the same 

 story ; here habit has often moulded pattern, or at 

 most they have abetted each the other. As we 

 must invariably discard the slightest notion of any- 

 thing intentional on the part of the protected form, 

 we cannot say, for instance, that the White Moun- 

 tain butterfly alights on a gray rock, in preference 

 to the ground or a twig of Yaccinium, in order to 

 gain the protection afforded by the resemblance of 

 the under surface of its wings to the mottled rock, 

 but rather that the protective coloring arose from 



