BEDROCK 



edition (1911) of Mendelism, where he makes the following extra- 

 ordinary statement : — 



" On the modern Darwinian view certain individuals of A. 

 dominicanus gradually diverged from the dominicanus type and 

 eventually reached the echeria type, though why this should have 

 happened does not appear to be clear. At the same time those 

 specimens [of Hypolimnas or Euralia] which tended to vary in 

 the direction of A. echeria in places where this species was more 

 abundant than A. dominicanus, were encouraged by natural 

 selection, and under its guiding hand mima eventually arose from 

 wahlbergi. 



" According to Mendelian views, on the other hand, A. echeria 

 arose suddenly from A. dominicanus (or vice versd), and similarly 

 mima arose suddenly from wahlbergi. . . . On this view the genera 

 Amauris and Euralia contain a similar set of pattern factors, and 

 the conditions, whatever they may be, which bring about mutation 

 in the former lead to the production of a similar mutation in the 

 latter." 



Professor Punnett's conception of the origin of mimetic resem- 

 blance as set forth in the last-quoted sentence, has already been 

 spoken of as a satisfactory substitute for the Darwinian interpreta- 

 tion, by Mr. Francis B. Sumner.* It amounts to this. A complex 

 pattern A arose, we know not why or how, from another complex 

 pattern B in a Danaine butterfly, while at the same time a (resem- 

 bling A) arose from b (resembling B) in a butterfly of a widely 

 removed sub-family. Although model and mimic are in every other 

 respect widely different, in this one single but highly complex feature 

 of pattern they are, according to Professor Punnett, identical. He 

 tells us that the same conditions, whatever they may be, acting upon 

 the same factors, produced the same result in these utterly different 

 butterflies. But it is only necessary to look at the pattern of the 

 mimic with the lens, or even critically with the naked eye, to see 

 that in every one of its elements, it is not the same, but widely 

 different from the model. The scaling is different, the quality of 

 the colouring is different, the outlines of the pattern can be seen, 

 even in the reduced reproduction of the corresponding western 

 forms shown in Plate III., Figs. 1 and 2, to be wholly different — 

 those of the model hard and sharp, those of the mimic soft and 

 transitional into the dark ground-colour. If Professor Punnett's 



* The Journal of Philosophy, New York, Vol. IX., pp. 159 — 61. 



52 



