TRUE MIMICRY 117 



same flowering shrub, as, for instance, in autumn, on the Japanese 

 buckwheat of our gardens {Polygonum sieholdii), both busily seeking 

 for honey. I once noticed a boy catching the flies with a net in 

 order to imprison them, but a bee stung him severely in the finger. 

 He innnediately abandoned the chase, and gave up the flies, perceiving 

 the dangers of confusion. So the animal enemies of Eristalis will 

 often prefer to leave it in peace rather than run the risk of 

 being stung. 



There is still another relation between two species which can be 

 induced by mimicry — namely, parasitism, w^hen, for instance, the 

 so-called cuckoo-bees and parasitic humble-bees deceptively resemble 

 in colour, arrangement of hair, and form of body, the species into 

 whose nests they smuggle their eggs, to have them brought up at the 

 expense of the bee or humble-bee in question. In the same way, 

 among the numerous parasites of ant nests, there are some which 

 copy the ants themselves, and so secure themselves from molestation, 

 although they devour the ants' eggs and pupa3. Thus, among the 

 hosts of South American driver-ants [Eciton prcedator) there lives 

 a predaceous beetle of the family Staphylina?, which has received 

 the name Mimeciton because it resembles the ant in form and in 

 the nature of the external surface, though not in colour, which is to 

 be explained by the fact that this ant has no compound eyes, and is 

 therefore almost blind, or at any rate cannot see colours. 



I should never come to an end were I to attempt to exhibit the 

 great wealth of observations now available in regard to mimicry. 

 But this at least may be added, that isolated cases of mimicry have 

 been found even among Vertebrates. Thus, according to Wallace, 

 the red-and-black striped poisonous coral snake of South America 

 (Elaps) is most realistically imitated by a non-poisonous snake 

 {E rytlirolampus) of the same region. Among birds, Wallace cites 

 a few cases which may be regarded as mimicry, but none are known 

 among mammals, which is not to be wondered at when we consider 

 how very much less numerous in individuals the species are which 

 live together on one area, and how much less likely it is that two 

 species should be, to begin with, so near each other in size, habit, and 

 form that the process of natural selection could bring about a 

 deceptive degree of resemblance. Without doubt it is among insects 

 that the conditions for mimicry are especially favourable, partly 

 because of the enormous number of species which live together and 

 have interrelations on the same area, even in our latitudes and much 

 more so in the tropics, and also because of their usually great 

 fecundity, and their rapid multiplication, both of which are factors 



