LECTURES. 41 
exactly mimicked by six or eight other butterflies. The case of 
Hypolimnas is most curious. The male isa rich brown colour with 
a large white spot on each wing, while the female resembles 
D. Chrysippus exactly except that there is only one black spot instead 
of four on the hind wings. ‘This mimicry by the female alone is 
quite common, and is easily explained, for the life of the male 
butterfly is of very little importance, while a female has to survive 
until she has laid her eggs in a suitable place. 
Such resemblances are found in other insects besides butterflies. 
For instance, a certain Borneo beetle exactly resembles a large black 
wasp, while other soft beetles resemble this curculios or weevils, which 
are so hard that they have to be drilled in order to be pinned, and 
would doubtless give a small bird indigestion. Again, grasshoppers 
are found which mimic the curculios, or even the bright but inedible 
Jady-bird. 
Mr. Wallace discovered in Sumatra a butterfly called Pupiho 
Memnon. The male is a rich black colour, on a ground of soft blue. 
Its wings are nearly five inches across, and the hind ones are rounded 
off with edges scalloped like a cockle. The females are of two kinds. 
About half resemble the male except in colours, but the rest are 
quite different. No one would suppose them to be the same insect, 
as their hind wings are lengthened out into large spoon-shaped tails, 
and are yellow instead of blue. When flying they exactly resemble 
another butterfly, the Papilio Coon, which is not attacked by birds. 
The most curious thing is both sorts of females have offspring of 
both kinds. This is as though a roaming European on some desert 
island had two wives—one a negress, and the other a Red Indian, 
and they both had children, which did not mingle the characteristics 
of their parents, but all the boys were fair like the father, while half 
the girls of both mothers had black skins and woolly pates, while the 
other half were copper-coloured with long straight hair. We may 
well feel bewildered at the notion. 
The whole forest then is peopled with shams. To us Englishmen, 
with our strong notions of sincerity and openness, there seems to be 
something mean and underband about it all, but perhaps we should : 
view the case differently if we lived in a tropical forest with tigers 
ready to pounce on us from behind and gorillas preparing to drop on 
us from above ; perhaps we should not even stick at dressing up like 
a monkey under the circumstances. At any rate it is better to be a 
live dog than a dead lion. 
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