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PROTECTIVE RESEMBLANCES in S. AMERICAN INSECTS. 



By W. C. MiT. 



DuKiNG a visit to Brazil in the latter months of 1888, I had 

 ahout six weeks of pleasant enforced leisure at a friend's house 

 on one of the thickly wooded hills overlooking the harhour and 

 town of Santos. During this time, and also while at S. Paulo, 

 Tijuca, and Petropolis, I employed myself in making a collection 

 of butterflies, of which there is a great profusion and variety in 

 Brazil. Not being an entomologist, my chief object was to bring 

 home with me to Europe insects enough to make up some pretty 

 cases, and to gratify a curiosity for natural history. 



During the time I was collecting several observations struck 

 me as possibly of interest in connection with the subject of pro- 

 tective resemblances, and I now mention some of them with a 

 view towards contributing, however little, to the further elucida- 

 tion of the subject. 



While on a subsequent visit to England, some of the butter- 

 flies collected by me were reset and named through Messrs. 

 Watkins & Doncaster, of the Strand. 



The protective resemblances of butterflies in Brazil is, if I 

 may so paradoxically express it, more apparent when perma- 

 nently settled at rest than when flying through the air, or 

 temporarily settled on a flower. In this respect they resemble 

 European butterflies. There are many Brazilian butterflies 

 which, when they display fully their charms of colour, pattern, 

 flight, and metaUic sheen, are very conspicuous objects in the 

 bright sunshine, and j-et, when at rest and alarmed, it is 

 remarkable what retiring and inconspicuous ohjects they become. 

 Some appear to be defended while on the wing by rapidity of 

 flight, such as the Papilios, ColanisjiiUu (Fabr.), Anosia erippus 

 (Cram.) ; others by a zigzag and apparently erratic flight, such 

 as the large blue Morphos, so common ahout Tijuca, near Piio, 

 the whites and the yellows. Eimogyra and others, when they 

 settle, have a habit of putting themselves on the under side of a 

 leaf, flattening out their wings horizontally when at rest, being 

 thus invisible, except from directly underneath. 



Some butterflies have slight thin bodies and transparent 

 wings, such as Ithomia. These frequent the undergrowth of 

 woods, especially in the neighbourhood of open glades or places 

 where the rays of the sun glance down through the upper 

 growth of trees, and it is surprising to one when flrst observing 

 this butterfly flying through the undergrowth of its native woods 

 how more inconspicuous they are practically than one would 

 have expected. The dancing flight through the bushes, and the 

 transparent gauzy wings with black herders, harmonise with the 

 dancing shadows of the leaves above. 



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