( ^ii ) 



solution in the vast majority of cases was the true explanation 

 of the others also. 



Further strong support for this conclusion and further 

 difficulty in the way of any other interpretation as yet offered 

 was to be found in the similar behaviour of the groups which 

 in other tropical countries represented the Danainae, Nectro- 

 pinfe, and Hehconiinae of S. America. Thus unmistakable 

 indications of Miillerian association were to be found among 

 the Acraeinffi of Africa and among the Danainte and Euplceinae 

 of the Oriental Eegion. It was impossible to contend that 

 these representative groups possessed the monopoly of parallel 

 variation, or of change under direct influence of the environ- 

 ment. 



The President : In treating of the Miillerian associations of 

 species closely resembling each other — many of which were so 

 well illustrated by the admirably arranged series of Tropical- 

 American Lepidoptera exhibited by Mr. Blandford— there 

 was always, in his opinion, great risk, in the case of species 

 of the same genus or even of nearly allied genera, of mis- 

 taking for mimicry the similarity really due to close affinity in 

 blood. It also occurred to him that in these Miillerian com- 

 panies, where each component species is admittedly protected, 

 some certainly and the rest presumably, by offensive and dis- 

 tasteful secretions, there did not apparently exist the same 

 necessity for exact imitation as was demanded in the case of 

 the Batesian mimicries, when the very existence of the unpro- 

 tected edible individual and species depended on the closest 

 simulation of the protected inedible form. The opinion had 

 been expressed that in the latter cases mimicry had some- 

 times been carried to an exactness in minutiae quite unneces- 

 sary ; but he thought that no one, who considered the life 

 conditions under which these mimicries had been brought 

 about — the intensity of competition, the overwhelming fer- 

 tility, the complex inter-relations of organisms, so charac- 

 teristic of tropical regions, could seriously conclude that these 

 special modes of protection could by any possibility be too 

 perfect. We might rest assured that imitations so complete 

 as many of them are would certainly not exist if they had not 

 become necessary. 



