BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS 143 



wonderful country that Mr. H. W. Bates made his first observa- 

 tions on the warning colours and mimicry of insects. In his 

 " Naturalist on the River Amazon " he gives the following account 

 of a species of Hawk-Moth, so like a humming bird in colour, 

 shape, and mode of flight, that it cannot be distinguished from 

 the bird when on the wing : " Several times I shot a Humming 

 Bird Hawk-Moth instead of a bird. This moth (Macroglossct 

 Titan) is somewhat smaller than the humming birds generally 

 are ; but its manner of flight, and the way it poises itself before 

 a flower whilst probing it with its proboscis, are precisely like the 

 same actions of humming birds. It was only after many days' 

 experience that I learnt to distinguish one from another when 

 on the wing. This resemblance has attracted the notice of the 

 natives, all of whom, even the educated whites, firmly believe 

 that one is transmutable into the other. They have observed 

 the metamorphosis of caterpillars into butterflies, and think it 

 is not at all more wonderful that a moth should change into a 

 humming bird. The resemblance between the hawk-moth and 

 the humming bird is certainly very curious, and strikes one even 

 when both are examined in the hand. Holding them sideways, 

 the shape of the head and the position of the eyes in the moth 

 are seen to be nearly the same as in the bird, the extended pro- 

 boscis representing the long beak. At the tip of the moth's body 

 there is a brush of long hair-scales resembling feathers which, 

 on being expanded, looks very much like the bird's tail. But, of 

 course, all these points of resemblance are merely superficial. 

 The negroes and Indians tried to convince me that the two were 

 of the same species. ' Look at their feathers/ they said ; ' their 

 eyes are the same, and so are their tails.' This belief is so deeply 

 rooted that it was useless to reason with them on the subject." 

 The Lepidoptera, both in the caterpillar and perfect stage, 

 afford some of the most striking and remarkable examples of 

 warning colours and protective mimicry. Bates was the first to 

 draw attention to the real significance of the close superficial 

 resemblance which insects belonging to very different groups fre- 

 quently bear to one another. His observations were conducted 

 during his long sojourn in tropical America, where he Was able 

 to prove that the abundant and conspicuous but nauseous butter- 

 flies belonging to the families Heliconida and Danaida are closely 



