302 THE PLACE OF MIMICRY 



without intelligence, under the compulsion of hereditary 

 mechanisms forming part of the nervous system. 



6. The Hypertely of B runner von Wattemvyl. The 

 very perfection and minute detail of certain Cryptic 

 Resemblances have been used as an argument that they 

 cannot have been produced by the operation of Natural 

 Selection. Thus in the likeness of butterflies to dead 

 leaves, described on pp. 203-6, or in that of the South 

 American moth, Draconia rusina* to a leaf attacked by 

 a fungus which has ' skeletonized ' certain parts, and is 

 still at work upon others in cases such as these it is 

 sometimes objected that the detail goes beyond what 

 can be conceived of as advantageous in the struggle for 

 life. The particular examples which led Brunner von 

 Wattenwyl 2 to suggest the term 'Hypertely', were the 

 South American Locustids of the genus Pterochroza. 

 He considered that the exposed anterior wings of certain 

 species resembled leaves bearing the tracks and marks 

 of leaf-mining larvae. The same argument is sometimes 

 employed in relation to the remarkably detailed resem- 

 blances of mimicry. All such criticism is founded on 

 our imperfect knowledge of the struggle for existence. 

 The impressions and judgements of man are immensely 

 influenced by the ' corroborative detail ', giving ' artistic 

 verisimilitude to a bald and unconvincing narrative '. 

 Indeed, the laughter which is invariably raised by this 

 passage from The Mikado is, I have always thought, 

 not only or chiefly due to the humour of the application, 

 but to the way in which a great and familiar truth breaks 

 in upon the listener with all the pleasing surprise which 

 belongs to epigram. Birds, the chief enemies of insects, 

 are known to have powers of sight far superior to those 

 of man, and, from our experience of them in captivity, it 

 may be safely asserted that their attention is attracted 

 by excessively minute detail. Until our knowledge of 

 the struggle for life is far more extensive than at present, 

 the argument founded on Hypertely may be left to 



1 Proc.J?n/.Soc.,Lond., it)o6,p. Ixxviii. Trans. Ent. Soc., Lond., 1906, 

 P- 533. pl- xxxii. 



8 Verh. zooL-bot. Ges. Wien,, xxxiii, 1883, p. 248. 



