VIII 



NATURAL SHLFXTIOX THE CAUSE 



OF MIMETIC RESEMBLANCE AND 



COMMON WARNING COLOURS 



A Paper read before ihe Linnean Society of London, March 17, 1S98. 

 Reprinted from the Li^mean Society s Journal — Zoolo^\ vol. xxvi, p. -,58. 



Brisfd : grcii//y viodified : jnany additions to text and footnotes. 



I. Historical hitrodnctioii, 



SuPERFiciAT resemblances between animals, especially 

 numerous in Insecta, were known long before H. W. 

 l^ates's paper, Coiitrihntioiis to an Insect Fauna of tJie 

 Amazon I 'alley, was read before the Linnean Society on 

 November 21, 1 861, and published in the Transactioyis 

 the following year.^ Some of the principal records of 

 these earlier observations are to be found in the Trans- 

 actions of the same learned Society. 



\V. S. Macleay, in his Ilorae Iintonwlooicae^- alluded 

 to certain cases which are now included under Mimicry, 

 viz. the likeness of some Diptera to H)'menoptera, and 

 interpreted them, together with man)- other resemblances 

 of structure and life-histor\-, by the principle of Analogy 

 as distinct from Affinity in Nature.'' These views were 

 adopted by Macleay's immediate successors. 



The Rev. William Kirby read A Description of sonte 

 Insects which appear to exemplify Mr. William S. Mac- 

 Leays Doctrine of ylffinity and Analogy, before the 

 Linnean Society on December 17, 1822, and the paper 

 was published in the Transactiotis^ 



' Vol. xxiii, p. 495. ' London, 1819 and 1821. 



» Pt. II, p. 365. ■• Vol. xiv, p. 93. 



