412 Mr. W. J. Kaye’s Notes on the dominant Miillerian 
is flanked throughout its entire length with heavy forest 
containing greenheart, wallaba, and mora, besides a vast 
number of other less known trees. 
The forest itself is dark and gloomy and throughout 
the greater part of the year excessively damp owing to a 
superabundant rainfall. The character of the vegetation 
is always the same as even in the dry season the trees are 
never otherwise than a fresh green. It is not surprising 
therefore that practically the whole of the Lepidoptera, 
excepting of course the several species of MJorpho, present 
a very uniform sombre tone of coloration. Even the very 
fine and brightly-coloured Heliconius catharine, Heliconius 
astydamia and Heliconius egeria do not strike one in their 
surroundings as particularly gaudy, and one is bound 
largely to admit the assertion of A. H. Thayer in his 
memoir in Trans. Ent. Soc. 1903, p. 553, that many species 
we call conspicuous are not really so in their surroundings. 
It must however have been quite impossible for Nature 
to have evolved such minutely close resemblance in 
unrelated groups without the aid of Miillerian mimicry. 
It is impossible to imagine that say an Erycinid butterfly 
Esthemopsis sericina, should have arrived at the identical 
colour and markings of a Syntomid moth Agyrta micilia 
purely and simply by the process of syncriptic selection. 
It is the minutest details in the coloration that dispel 
such a probability : moreover in certain cases, as Prof. 
E. B. Poulton has cited, I could definitely state that 
butterflies settled on most “unsuitable” flowers for their 
protection. A good example is found in the Lycorza,- 
Melinxa,-Heliconius group that frequents the white 
flowers of the plant Hupatoriwm macrophyllum. This 
becomes a most valuable piece of evidence, as the species 
frequenting these flowers form one of the most extensive 
of all the groups that we are in the habit of calling 
Miillerian. ~ Although this Lycorva,-Melinzxa,-Heliconius, 
etc., group is by far the largest and most dominant, there are 
many other groups in the region : in fact the vast majority 
of the individuals belong to one or other of a “ coterie” of 
similarly coloured species. In the Hesperidx there are one 
or two conspicuous examples of synaposematic coloration, 
and the Hrycinide offer some examples, and it is only 
in the Lycenide that there appears to be an absence of it ; 
this bears out exactly what Prof. Poulton said in the 
Trans. Ent. Soc. 1902, p. 500. It should however be 
