xxiv MUTATION, MENDELISM, ETC. 



question of a Mlillerian as against a Ratesian interpretation 

 of the facts of Mimicry (so fully discussed in the present 

 volume) is of no importance to the present arooiment. 

 The metaphor in the preceding paragraph sufficiently 

 indicates why it is that the facts of Mimicry arc them- 

 selves inconsistent with an evolution based on discon- 

 tinuous variation. 



1 should be the last to maintain that the followers 

 of any other subject are bound to go into the details 

 of Cryptic Resemblance and Mimicry, and I should have 

 been well pleased if Mendelian workers had confined 

 theniselves to the interesting and indeed exciting lines 

 of inquiry started by Mendel. But they have by no 

 means been content with this. R. H. Lock, in his 

 recent work, Variation, Heredity and Evolution} refers 

 to Mimicry, <S:c., apparently without making himself in any 

 way acquainted with the work that has been done in these 

 subjects. His suggestion of alternative interpretations 

 had been made long ago, and met long ago, as may be 

 seen in the eighth essay in the present volume, originally 

 published in 1898. It is well known that in the Mope 

 Department of the Oxford University Museum a special 

 study of Mimicr)- has been made and special illustrative 

 sets of specimens brought together. I should have been 

 only too pleased to show the material to this author, or 

 to any other naturalist. It is not fair controversy, after 

 utterly neglecting what has been done, to jjrofess to sum 

 up the evidence for Mimicry in these words : ' Several 

 supposed examples of this phenomenon have been 

 described in the case of different genera of tropical 

 butterflies.' - 



^ London, 1906. 



2 R. H. Lock, 1. c, p. 51. The following statement on the subject of 

 Protective Resemblance is also very misleading : — ' Examples of this 



