572 MILLER—MIMICRY 
only an expert listener will know the meaning. At others the 
continuous Babel of sounds will ensure the attention of the most 
incurious (cf. GABBLE-RATCHET). It is now well known that these 
noises proceed from migrating birds, which, it is supposed, having 
lost their way, are attracted by the glare of the street-lamps ; but far 
too little has been observed to remove the obscurity that in a double 
sense surrounds them and to enable us to come to further definite 
conclusion. It must be added also that such a concourse has been 
noticed where the attraction of light did not exist, for Lord Lilford 
has recorded (Jbis, 1865, p. 176) how that once at Corfu he was 
startled by an’ uproar as if all the feathered inhabitants of the 
great Acherusian Marsh had met in conflict overhead, but he could 
form no conception of what birds produced the greater part of it. 
MILLER, a name given to the grey males of Circus cyaneus and 
C. cineraceus (HARRIER) in days when both were common; and 
also locally to the WuITEeTHROAT (cf. Germ. Miillerchen and Dutch 
Molenaartje). 
MIMICRY, with the prefix UNCONSCIOUS, which in every 
department of Zoology should be always expressed or understood,! 
signifies the more or less complete likeness, in colouring or form 
or in both, which one creature bears to another, so that in 
some cases one may easily be mistaken for the other, though 
the affinity between them may be very remote. It is probably 
among Birds that the earliest example of this kind of Mimicry 
was recognized, for Aristotle (Hist. An. vi. 7) noticed the resem- 
blance of a Cuckow to a Hawk;? while among insects many 
cases have long been known,? and generally spoken of as in- 
stances of “mimetic analogy,” whatever that phrase might mean ; 
but, as Mr. Wallace has said (Darwinism, p. 240), “the subject was 
looked upon as one of the inexplicable curiosities of nature, till Mr. 
Bates studied the phenomenon among the butterflies of the Amazon, 
and on his return home gave the first rational explanation of it,” 
1 Except perhaps in relation to Sone, but this is uncertain. 
2 Hence sprang the belief, as old as his time (though discountenanced by 
him) and hardly yet given up in some places, that the Cuckow became a Hawk 
in winter, resuming its more harmless character in summer ; and of course all 
observers know that this belief is still shared by little birds, who on that 
account ‘‘mob” the Cuckow whenever it appears. 
’ These are far too numerous to be cited here, but reference may be given to 
a few of the older examples, as so many people think the discovery to be recent : 
Linneus included the Homopterous Aleyrodes proletella in the Lepidopterous 
subgenus Tinea ; some remarkable instances are given by Kirby and Spence 
(Introd. Entomol. ii. p. 223), who did not hesitate to assign deception as the 
motive of the counterfeit presentment, though of course accounting for it in a 
way very different from that now generally accepted ; and Prof. Westwood men- 
tions (7’rans. Linn, Soc. xviii. pp. 410, 411) others. 
