456 Lieut.-Col. N. Manders on the Study of Mimicry by 



off a possible enemy ; in other words, it comes under 

 that form of mimicry known as aposematic or warning 

 coloration. 



There are, however, certain features in its area of dis- 

 tribution, which, to my mind, render this doubtful. I 

 certainly found it, or its sub-form alcippoides,covavaovL\y in 

 North-East Sumatra, where rain falls every week in the 

 year, and it is also common and very variable in the 

 Andaman Islands, where the general conditions are also 

 like those on the West Coast. But it is absent from a 

 similar environment in Ceylon, yet is found, though rarely, 

 in the arid northern district of the island. Alcippoides is 

 by no means uncommon in the bare plains of the Deccan 

 and Madras, where the country is totally different from the 

 West Coast. 



The view that an aposematic colouring is necessary in 

 one region and a cryptic colouring in another, both pro- 

 duced by the same factor, is complicated and not easy to 

 understand, and I know of no direct evidence to support 

 such a conclusion. The necessity for it in an insect so 

 unpalatable, as chrysippus is generally held to be, is not 

 lessened when we remember that the cryptic form is not 

 uncommon in Bombay, and the conspicuous one is common 

 in the adjoining Presidency of Madras, where the local 

 conditions are almest identical. 



These experiments throw little light on the origin of 

 this form, though there is one specimen which shows an 

 approach to it ; doripjjus also sometimes shows white on 

 the hindwings, and it is possible, though this is a little 

 more than conjecture, that it is the earliest form from 

 which chrysippus has branched off in one direction and 

 the white winged forms in another. The evidence that 

 either has been influenced by Natural Selection is at 

 present, to my mind, unconvincing. 



Finally, as to the main question ; the relationship of 

 these two butterflies to each other ; whether they have 

 arrived at their present appearance by any form of 

 mimicry ; or whether their resemblance can be otherwise 

 accounted for. 



There is in this case, as in all similar examples of 

 mimicry, the primary difficulty of understanding how 

 small variations of colour or pattern in one butterfly 

 could be so elaborated by the attacks of birds as to 

 resemble the colour or pattern of another unrelated to 



