230 THE COLOURS OF ANIMALS 



In India, on the other hand, M. de Nicevilie found 

 that Acrcea violce was the only butterfly refused by all 

 the species oi Mantis with which he experimented. Mr. 

 Wallace quotes an observation by the Hon. Justice 

 Newton, upon the bulbul, which chases and greedily 

 devours a swift but palatable butterfly, but could only 

 be induced to touch a Dawais by repeated persecution.* 



Some very interesting observations prove that the 

 unpleasant qualities are retained in the dried specimens 

 long after death. ' Mr. Bates observed that, when 

 set out to dry, specimens of Heliconidce were less 

 subject to the attacks of vermin ; ' ^ while Professor 

 Meldola even found that ' in an old collection which 

 had been destroyed by mites, the least mutilated 

 specimens were species of Danais and Euploea.' ^ This 

 observation has been confirmed by Mr. J. Jenner 

 Weir. 



Conclusion warranted by the evidence 



I have brought together all the available evidence 

 on this subject, because there has been of late years 

 a rather wide- spread tendency to reject the explana- 

 tion offered by Mr. Bates. The evidence, however, 

 certainly warrants the conviction that experiment 

 would prove all (protectively) mimicked species to he in 

 some way disagreeable or even dangerous to the enemies 

 of their class ; and if this be so, the probability that 



1 Darwinism, p. 235. * Darwinism, p. 234. 



« Froc. Ent. Soc. Lond. 1877, p. xii. 



