Cuap. VII. MIMICRY. 153 
not leave the open kitchen at the back of the house for a moment, whilst 
the dinner was cooking, on account of their thievish propensities. 
Some of them were always loitering about, watching their opportunity, and 
the instant the kitchen was left unguarded, the bold marauders marched 
in and lifted the lids of the saucepans with their beaks to rob them of 
their contents. The boys of the village lie in wait, and shoot them with 
bow and arrow ; and vultures have consequently acquired such a dread 
of these weapons, that they may be often kept off by hanging a bow 
from the rafters of the kitchen. As the dry season advances, the hosts 
of Urubus follow the fishermen to the lakes, where they gorge them- 
selves with the offal of the fisheries. Towards February they return to 
the villages, and are then not nearly so ravenous as before their summer 
trips. 
The insects of Villa Nova are, to a great extent, the same as those 
of Santarem and the Tapajos. A few species of all orders, however, 
are found here, which occurred nowhere else on the Amazons, besides 
several others which are properly considered local varieties or races of 
others found at Para, on the northern shore of the Amazons, or in other 
parts of Tropical America. The Hymenoptera were especially numerous, 
as they always are in districts which possess a sandy soil: but the many 
interesting facts which I gleaned relative to their habits will be more 
conveniently introduced wher. I treat of the same or similar species 
found in the localities above named. 
One of the most conspicuous insects peculiar to Villa Nova is an 
exceedingly handsome butterfly, which has been named Agrias Phalcidon. 
It is of large size, and the colours of the upper surface of its wings 
resemble those of the Callithea Leprieurii, already described, namely, 
dark blue, with a broad silvery-green border... When it settles on leaves 
of trees, fifteen or twenty feet from the ground, it closes its wings and 
then exhibits a row of brilliant pale-blue eye-like spots with white 
pupils, which adorns their under surface. Its flight is exceedingly 
swift, but when at rest it is not easily made to budge from its place ; 
or if driven off, returns soon after to the same spot. Its superficial 
resemblance to Callithea Leprieurii, which is a very abundant species 
in the same locality, is very close. The likeness might be considered 
a mere accidental coincidence, especially as it refers chiefly to the 
upper surface of the wings, if similar parallel resemblances did not 
occur between other species of the same two genera. Thus, on the 
Upper Amazons, another totally distinct kind of Agrias mimics still 
more closely another Callithea ; both insects being peculiar to the 
district where they are found flying together. Resemblances of this 
nature are very numerous in the insect world. I was much struck with 
them in the course of my travels, especially when, on removing from 
one district to another, local varieties of certain species were found 
accompanied by local varieties of the species which counterfeited them 
in the former locality, under a dress changed to correspond with the 
altered liveries of the species they mimicked. One cannot help con- 
cluding these imitations to be intentional, and that nature has some 
motive in their production. In many cases, the reason of the imitation 
is sufficiently plain. For instance, when a fly or parasitic bee has a 
