PREJUDICE AGAINST MIMICRY 131 



often best understood and most readily accepted 

 by those who were not naturalists. Thus Darwin 

 wrote to D. T. Ansted, Oct. 27, 1860 : 



'I am often in despair in making the generality of 

 naturalists even comprehend me. Intelligent men who are 

 not naturalists and have not a bigoted idea of the term 

 species, show more clearness of mind.' l 



Even before the Origin appeared Darwin 

 anticipated the first results upon the mind of 

 naturalists. He wrote to Asa Gray, Dec. 21, 

 1859 : 



' I have made up my mind to be well abused ; but I 

 think it of importance that my notions should be read by 

 intelligent men, accustomed to scientific argument, though 

 not naturalists. It may seem absurd, but I think such men 

 will drag after them those naturalists who have too firmly 

 fixed in their heads that a species is an entity.' 2 



Mimicry was not only one of the first great 

 departments of zoological knowledge to be studied 

 under the inspiration of Natural Selection, it is 

 still and will always remain one of the most 

 interesting and important of subjects in relation 

 to this theory as well as to evolution. In Mimicry 

 we investigate the effect of environment in its 

 simplest form : we trace the effects of the 

 pattern of a single species upon that of another 

 far removed from it in the scale of classification. 

 When there is reason to believe that the model 

 is an invader from another region and has only 

 recently become an element in the environment 



1 More Letters, i. 175. 



2 Life and Letters, ii. 245. See also pp. 32-3 of the present work. 



K2 



