272 ROMANCE OF THE INSECT WORLD CHAP. 



of the mimic. This insect is possessed of other means 

 of defence, which may be called into action should the 

 terrifying attitude fail to repel attack. Elaborate and 

 numerous defensive appliances probably indicate a 

 much and long persecuted larva, one that has with- 

 stood all the persecution to which it has been liable 

 only by the repeated acquisition of new means of re- 

 sistance. There is experimental proof that the inter- 

 pretation of these appearances is correct, and that the 

 assumption of these mimetic resemblances is of real 

 protective value by inspiring insect-eating animals 

 with fear. 



In a relatively few cases of Mimicry an insect 

 resembles another so as to be able to injure it. The 

 latter may constitute the prey of the mimic, and by 

 virtue of its deception the predacious form is enabled 

 to approach its living food without exciting suspicion. 

 Probably the close resemblance of spiders to ants may 

 be explained in this way in a few instances. Bates 

 mentions a Mantis in the Amazons which exactly 

 resembles the white ants on which it feeds. 



This Mimicry may allow the aggressive form 

 to lay eggs in the nest of that mimicked, at whose 

 expense the hatched young live, either upon food 

 stored up by their unhappy hosts, or even upon 

 their larvae. Thus the larvae of two-winged flies of 

 the British genus Volucella and many tropical 

 Bombylii are parasitic upon the larvae of particular 

 species of industrious bees. Most of the flies are 

 remarkably like the bees on which they prey, and 

 enter the nests unsuspected to deposit their eggs. 

 Volucella inanis resembles the common wasp ( Vespa 



