322 THE PLACE OF MIMICRY 



the aim of nature could not be ' simple conspicuousness ' 

 alone. There is the danger of special enemies, and the 

 danger of specially hungry enemies ; and it must be 

 freely admitted that conspicuousness beyond what is 

 necessary for warning an attacking enemy would be 

 a danger. Mr. Thayer states that iridescence tends to 

 render colours less conspicuous, and we certainly observe 

 that a uniform black appearance unrelieved by pattern is 

 continually accompanied by iridescence or structural 

 surface colours of some kind. In view of Mr. Thayer's 

 suggestion, it becomes probable that dead black would 

 be too conspicuous for many a well-armed Aculeate or 

 nauseous Euploea, and that it is therefore modified so 

 that it obtrudes less upon the distant view of enemies 

 that ' mean business '.* 



Naturalists have used the term 'conspicuous' relatively, 

 and furthermore, in using it, have taken into account the 

 habits, movements, modes of display, &c., which may 

 be of even more importance than the colouring itself. 

 The Ithomiine and convergent Heliconine butterflies of 

 tropical America are no doubt far from possessing an 

 ' intrinsically revealing coloration ' such as Mr. Thayer 

 describes ; but it is equally true that they fall into an 

 entirely different category from that which includes the 

 Cryptic species, with undersides resembling leaves, bark, 

 &c. Mr. Thayer suggests that they resemble flowers, 

 and the surroundings of flowers, and that their extra- 

 ordinary likeness to each other may be incidentally due 

 to their resembling the same kind of flower in other 

 words may be Syncryptic. The British Guiana associa- 

 tion of Ithomiinae, Heliconinae, &c. (see pp. 331-3) has 

 been studied in its native haunts far more completely 

 than any other. Mr. W. J. Kaye, who has devoted 

 special and prolonged attention to them, states that these 

 black, ' cow-red, and chrome-yellow ' butterflies, as they 

 are precisely described by Mr. Thayer, frequent ' the 

 white flowers of the plant Eupatorium macrophyllum '.- 

 There is no evidence of Cryptic Resemblance to flowers 



1 Trans. Ent. Soc., Lond,, 1903, p. 575. 



2 Trans. Enl. Soc., Land., 1 906, p. 412. 



