MUTATION AND MIMICRY xxv 



If, instead of attempting to criticize without knowledge, 

 R. H. Lock were to make a careful study of the 

 subject, he would find much that bears upon his own 

 opinions and beliefs. The influence of the organism 

 itself upon the direction taken by Natural Selection can 

 be clearly proved in numbers of cases. For in Mimicry 

 the changes have often been so rapid, that we may 

 see the finished product and the stages of its preparation 

 living side by side, and we can safely conclude that the 

 type of the original non-mimetic pattern determined the 

 evolution of one mimetic likeness rather than any other. 



In order to facilitate this study, I had intended to add 

 an eleventh essay, which might serve as a guide to the 

 most striking examples of Mimicry to be found in any 

 large collection of butterflies. But I found that anything 

 like an adequate introduction to the subject in butterflies 

 alone would require a book to itself. In the meantime, 

 until that volume appears, as it will, I hope, at no distant 

 date, the instances mentioned in the last three essays will, 

 if examined in any collection, give some conception of 

 the subject. A study of the examples described in the 

 various memoirs referred to will convey full information 

 of the state of existing knowledge, but such a task would 

 be an arduous one. 



If believers in Mutation will do me the honour not 

 to accept my statements of mimetic resemblance, but will 

 merely use them as a guide to the species themselves, 

 I have no doubt that they will recognize some of the 

 difficulties in the way of an interpretation based on a 

 hypothesis of discontinuous evolution. Reversing the 

 order of discovery, the study should begin with the 



kind in which the shape of an animal leads to its concealment are com- 

 paratively infrequent, although a considerable number might be collected ' 

 (1. c, pp. 50-1). 



