MIMICRY IN INSECTS. 59 



which the crickets of the genus Scaphura in South America 

 bear to different large sand-wasps, which are constantly searching 

 for crickets to provision their nests with ! 



A very remarkable case of the mimicry of a predaceous beetle 

 by a cricket (in the Philippine Islands) is given by Professor 

 Westwood, in which the resemblance is so exact that even that 

 most experienced entomologist was deceived, and placed the 

 cricket among the specimens of the tiger-beetle in question in his 

 collection ! 



It is among the weevils or " snout-beetles " (Curculionidse), 

 and the allied Anthribidae, that the best instances of defensive 

 armour occur, many of these insects having such exceedingly 

 hard integuments that no pin will pierce them. Mr. Bates 

 records two, and Mr. Wallace five, cases in which beetles of the 

 Longicorn group closely copy Curculionidse inhabiting the same 

 districts ; and in one of these Mr. Bates found the hard weevil 

 and the mimicking Long-horn on the same tree. 



Turning now to those cases where it is to the interest of 

 defenceless forms which are palatable to their enemies to 

 resemble creatures that are habitually rejected or passed by as 

 uneatable owing to their offensive odour or taste, we find some 

 of the most prominent and perfect mimicries known. The 

 phenomenon is most complete and conspicuous among butterflies ; 

 and it is to the distinguished traveller and naturalist, Mr. Henry 

 Walter Bates, F.R.S., that Science owes the first and only 

 rational exposition and explanation of the subject that has been 

 given. His memoir, read to the Linnean Society of London, in 

 1861, and subsequently published in the ' Transactions ' (vol. 

 xxiii.) of that body, was entitled " Contributions to an Insect 

 Fauna of the Amazon Valley. Lepidoptera : Heliconidse ;" and 

 in it he lucidly presented the results of many years' daily 

 experience and observation of the variation, habits, distribution, 

 and relative numbers of the brilliant slow-flying species free 

 from persecution, and of the accompanying imitative forms of 

 different groups. Mr, Bates showed that, while the models were 

 most abundant and presented the ordinary facies of their family, 

 the mimickers were rare, and departed very widely from the 

 appearance of their nearest allies ; that the latter frequented the 

 same spots as their models, often flying among them ; and that 

 the resemblance in Nature was so exact that his own well-practised 



