EARLY WORKS ON MIMICRY 221 



Boisduval, in 1836, remarked on the resemblance 

 between certain West African butterflies belonging to 

 very different groups.^ 



Professor Westwood read Illustrations of the Relation- 

 ships existing amongst Natural Objects, usually termed 

 Affinity and Analogy, selected from the Class of Insects 

 before the Linnean Society, on January 17 and May 2, 

 1837, the paper appearing in the Transactions.'^ In the 

 memoir many new examples were published and figured, 

 while Macleay's views were criticized and expanded in 

 an interesting manner. 



The same recognition of Mimicry is equally well seen 

 in the names with the termination -forniis given to so 

 many of our moths, indicating their resemblance to wasps, 

 bees, and other insects. In spite, however, of the know- 

 ledge of a large number of instances, the subject made no 

 real progress until the appearance of H. W. Bates's paper. 

 The view then set forth that the resemblances are in 

 themselves beneficial to the possessor was, as far as I am 

 aware, only once suggested before — in the well-known 

 I ntrodtiction by Kirby and Spence. These authors write 

 as follows : — ' Some singular larvae, with a radiated anus, 

 live in the nests of humble-bees, and are the offspring of 

 a particular genus of flies {Volucella, Geoffr., Pterocera, 

 Meigen), many of the species of which strikingly resemble 

 those bees in shape, clothing, and colour. Thus has the 

 Author of nature provided that they may enter those 

 nests and deposit their eggs undiscovered. Did these 

 intruders venture themselves amongst the humble-bees 

 in a less kindred form, their lives would probably pay the 

 forfeit of their presumption.' ^ This interesting paragraph, 

 although fully recognizing the utility of Mimetic Resem- 

 blance in species which were then believed to have been 

 separately created and to have come into existence fully 

 formed and complete, sustains a position which is the 

 very antithesis of that taken up by Bates. The con- 

 tention that the utility of the resemblance has been the 



^ Species General des Le'pidopieres, pp. 372, 373. 



' Vol. xviii, p. 409. 



^ Kirby and Spence, vol. ii, 181 7, p. 223. 



