Theory of Mimicry Criticised 



(Tetrapteryx paradisea) it is the innermost or 

 tertiary quills of wing ; in one of the egrets 

 some of the feathers of the upper back grow 

 to a great length and form a train ; in the Bird 

 of Paradise (JParadisea apoda) the long flank 

 plumes are commonly mistaken for the tail. 



In these cases there can be no question of 

 mimicry. 



7. We have shown that the idea that imitator 

 and imitated are always found in the same area 

 is absolutely fallacious. In birds, for example, 

 the most striking resemblances appear to occur 

 between species that dwell far apart. 



8. We can cite, as parallel to the case of a 

 mimicking species of which the male copies one 

 model and the female another, the strange 

 similarity between the barred brown plumage 

 of the female blackcock and that of the female 

 eider-duck. The males of these species, although 

 both black and white, differ greatly in appear- 

 ance ; but the male blackcock is admittedly very 

 like the male of another species of sea-duck the 

 scoter. 



9. Against the supposed ancestral non- 

 mimetic forms existing on islands we can pit 

 the " mimetic" orioles in small islands and their 

 non-mimetic cousins on the mainland. In 

 Australia an oriole of what appears to be an 

 ancestral style lives beside, but declines to 

 mimic, a friar bird of a very pronounced type. 



249 



