340 Colonel C. Swinhoe on Mimicry in Nature. 



to the Fiji Islands, where we get a transitional form. There 

 seems to be here a regular mimetic gradation from a brown to a 

 yellow EupI(Ba. We do not know much at present of the Lepi- 

 doptera of the Fiji Islands, but I can show you one or two of the 

 F.vplcea, and Mr. Crowley in his magnificent collection has 

 several. You can get them in the transitional stage there from 

 the Daiiais to the Euplaa. From the Celebes, to my astonish- 

 ment, I have got the female of H. bolina in a mimetic form 

 resembling a male Danais, and these came in an ordinary 

 collection I received from the Celebes through Herr Sniller, 

 the well-known Dutch lepidopterist. From here we go to Africa. 



In Africa we find both sexes of H. bolina mimicking various 

 kinds of Danaina, and consequently from a systematist's point of 

 view, having lost their specific characters, they bear many 

 specific names. In search of the mimetic form of this most 

 extraordinary species I looked over Mr. Crowley's magnificent 

 collection ; I also went over the collection of Mr. F. Moore, 

 Mr. Godman, Mr. Druce, and of the British Museum, besides 

 my own, and I must say the result is most extraordinary. In 

 every district, the south, west, and east, and I dare say in many 

 places in the interior, you get this extraordinary insect in a new 

 garb, coloured and marked — though structurally the same — in 

 the garb of the common noxious Eiipleus of the district. 1 might 

 have brought at least a hundred different specimens to-day. But 

 I have selected three, not that they show better mimicry than 

 the others, for in every locality where the forms occur the 

 mimicry seems to be remarkably good ; but these show more or 

 less different patterns, and are from such widely different 

 localities as Natal, in the south-east, and the Cameroons, in the 

 west, of Africa : — H. mar(jinalis, protected by its resemblance to 

 the Dmtais (Ammnis) Jominicas from Delawur; H. mima, pro- 

 tected by its resemblance to Danais [Amanris) echeria from 

 Graham's Town ; H. dubia, protected by its resemblance to 

 Danais [Amaiiris) erjialea from the Cameroons. 



I know there are many people who will still continue to pooh- 

 pooh the whole theory of mimicry. The theory was only started 

 in 1862 ; volumes have been written about it since then : many 

 eminent men have done so, and people still continue to reject it. 

 Only last summer a very eminent Professor, for whom in every 

 other matter 1 have the most profound respect, told me that his 

 silk umbrella was of a mimetic character, that it was gradually 

 assuming the appearance of a cotton umbrella to escape being 

 stolen. It is all very well to laugh at the theory, but it is an 

 undoubted fact that these things are. You have followed to- 

 night one species all over the Old World, and you find it nowhere 

 but in the garb or disguise of the common noxious insect of the 

 district. It is nowhere but in that disguise, and wherever the 



