RIVAL THEORIES OF MIMICRY 21 



o 



more widely understood and has gained a larger number of 

 supporters in this country than in any other. Nevertheless, 

 in spite of the powerful defence always accorded to it by 

 Professor Meldola, the progress of opinion in the direction 

 of Muller's hypothesis has been until quite lately slow 

 and gradual ; and this is probably due to the fact that 

 the minds of naturalists were already occupied by the 



.older and, in many respects, antagonistic theory. It is 

 impossible on this occasion to give any generaT account 

 of the evidence which has been gradually accumulating 

 in support of the Mullerian theory ; but the name of 

 Dr. F. A. Dixey will always stand out as one of its chief 

 defenders, and one who, more than any other, is respon- 

 sible for the recent rapid growth of opinion in its favour. 1 



Ever since the appearance of Bates's original paper 

 textbooks have copied from it and from one another 

 the wonderful examples of palatable Pierine butterflies 

 (belonging to the group which contains our own ' Garden 

 Whites ') living upon the evil reputation of their models 

 belonging to the tropical American ' Heliconidae' (a com- 

 posite group in Bates's memoir). But Dr. Dixey has 

 even dared to lay his hand, so to speak, upon the Ark of 

 Batesian Mimicry itself, when, in 1894, he argued that 

 the Heliconid models in certain respects mimic their 

 Pierine imitators : that the resemblance has been attained 

 by means of reciprocal approach. 



It has been shown on page 103 that the columns of Punch 

 afforded an excellent reflection of the state of contemporary 

 thought and criticism on Darwinian and Lamarckian Evolu- 

 tion. It is precisely the same with Batesian and Mullerian 

 Mimicry, as is clearly shown in the following passages : 2 — 



' The same [museum] case contains an object-lesson illus- 

 trating what is described as " Reciprocal Advantage ". So . 

 far as I can follow it, the situatiorfTs something like this : 



1 See especially the following memoirs by Dr. Dixey : Rep. Brit. Ass., 

 1894, p. 692 (abstract); Trans. Ent. Soc, Lond., 1894, p. 249; ibid., 

 1896, p. 65 ; ibid., 1897, p. 317; see also the discussion which followed 

 this latter paper, in Proceedings, 1897, pp. xx-xxxii and xxxiv-xlvii. 



- Punch, May 2, 1906, pp. 312, 313, Moral Reflections at the 

 Natural History Museum, I. 



