CUAI-. V11L] LIKENESSES IN ANIMALS AND PLANTS. 247 



was covered over with foliaceous excrescences of a clear 

 olive-green colour, so as exactly to resemble a stick grown 

 over by a creeping moss or jungermannia. The Dyak who 

 brought it me assured me it was grown over with moss 

 although alive, and it was only after a most minute exami 

 nation that I could convince myself it was not.&quot; In speaking 

 of a leaf-butterfly he tells us that :* &quot; We come to a still 

 more extraordinary part of the imitation, for we find repre 

 sentations of leaves in every stage of decay, variously 

 blotched, and mildewed, and pierced with holes, and in 

 many cases irregularly covered with powdery black dots, 

 gathered into patches and spots, so closely resembling the 

 various kinds of minute fungi that grow on dead leaves, that 

 it is impossible to avoid thinking at first sight that the 

 butterflies themselves have been attacked by real fungi.&quot; 



These facts appeared to me some years ago to be of a nature 

 which no amount of accidental minute indefinite Nottobee 

 variations acted on by the destroying agencies ^ch^taf 

 of nature (inducing the &quot; survival of the fittest &quot;) varlatious - 

 could possibly account. I then saidf (opposing the Darwinian 

 hypotheses of the origin of species by natural selection) : 

 &quot; Now let us suppose that the ancestors of these various 

 animals were all destitute of the very special protections 

 they at present possess, as on the Darwinian hypothesis we 

 must do. Let it also be conceded that small deviations from 

 the antecedent colouring or form would tend to make some 

 of their ancestors escape destruction by causing them more 

 or less frequently to be passed over, or mistaken by their 

 persecutors. Yet the deviation must, as the event has 

 shown, in each case be in some definite direction, whether 

 it be towards some other animal or plant, or towards some 

 dead organic matter. But as, according to Mr. Darwin s 

 theory, there is a constant tendency to indefinite variation, 

 and as the minute incipient variations will be in all directions, 



* Op. dt. p. 60. 



t Genesis of Species (Mucniilluii), 2nd edition, p 38. 



