264 ROMANCE OF THE INSECT WORLD CHAP. 



generally very different creature. The purpose 

 answered is the same in all the cases, viz., protection. 

 In the one case the leaf, or some such inanimate 

 object, is passed over by the enemy, and so the dis- 

 guise is a safe-guard ; in the other the living insect 

 that is resembled is unharmed, and of necessity the 

 resembling insect must share in its immunity. 



That in greater need of protection we find the 

 cause of the difference of colour of the female, whether 

 it consist in decrease or increase of splendour or 

 elaboration as compared with the male, seems corro- 

 borated by the fact that where protection of the kind 

 is not required, in other words where protection is pro- 

 cured independently of concealment for the assump- 

 tion of mimetic warning colours is in a sense conceal- 

 ment the colouration of both sexes is nearly or quite 

 the same. In the specially protected and mimicked 

 groups Heliconidae and Danaidse, the unpalatability of 

 which seems to be almost universally known among 

 insect eaters, no sexual difference of colour is 

 exhibited. The same obtains with little variation 

 among other groups of insects possessed of distasteful 

 or dangerous qualities advertised by Warning Colours. 

 For example, in the stinging Hymenoptera, as well as 

 in the Cetoniidae and Buprestidae, which are protect- 

 ed by their .hardness, the two sexes may be said to 

 be equally well coloured. The probable combined 

 influence of sexual selection in determining the dis- 

 similarity of the sexes is here naturally omitted. 



We have found that a Lepidopterous insect mimics 

 another, such only as we have every reason to believe 

 is uneatable, and therefore free from attack, under 



