MIMICRY BETWEEN DISTINCT ORDERS 2u 



J 



of actual experiments made, up to 1887, upon the palata- 

 bility and unpalatability of conspicuous and inconspicuous 

 insects. It may be safely asserted that the theories in 

 question are not nearly so devoid of support from the 

 results of experiment and observation as has been 

 represented. 



Since 1887 further evidence has been forthcoming in 

 support of the Mullerian explanation ; for it has been 

 shown in many cases that insects which resemble specially 

 defended members of another Order, themselves belong 

 to a specially defended group within their own Order. 

 Thus Haase^ points out that the South-American moths 

 which resemble ' immune ' Coleoptera — the Lycinae, 

 ' belong to the immune families of the Glarccopidae 

 [Mimica, Lycoviorphd) and Arctiidae (Pionici)l and also 

 that the South- American Glaucopidae furnish numerous 

 cases of resemblance to Aculeate Hymenoptera.- 



In the year 1897 Dr. L. O. Howard, of Washington, 

 kindly presented to the Hope Department, Oxford 

 University Museum, a pair of specimens which prove 

 that the specially protected moth Lycomorpha latercula 

 (Edw.) occurs in the same locality and at the same time 

 of the year as the protected beetle Lygistopterics riibri- 

 pennis (Lee), which it closely resembles, the former 

 having been captured on June 18, the latter on June 5, 

 1897, iri the Chiricahua Mountains, Arizona, by H. G. 

 Hubbard. 



Furthermore, the resemblance between the species 

 of the two great sections of the Order Lepidoptera — • 

 the Rhopalocera and Heterocera — is frequently of the 

 Mullerian rather than the Batesian kind. Thus Sir 

 George Hampson has pointed out that the moth Abraxas 

 etridoides^ resembling the butterfly Teracolns ^/r/i/.^, belongs 

 to a specially protected genus, and that similarly three 

 genera of the Chalcosid group oi Zygaenidae,\A\\Qki are said 

 to resemble Danaine and Papilionine butterflies, are also 



^ Researches on Mimicry, part ii, Stuttgart, 1896, English translation 

 by C. M. Child, p. 70. 



'^ I.e. p. 73. In a note to the same page Haase adduces some little 

 direct evidence for the inedibility of a Glaucopid moth. 



