MIMICRY AND OTHER PROTECTIVE RE- 

 SEMBLANCES AMONG ANIMALS 



Alfred Russel Wallace 



[Mr. Wallace, one of the greatest naturalists of the age, 

 discovered the law of natural selection indepenck-i 

 Darwin, and about the same time. Among his works are 

 "The Malay Archipelago," "Island Life," and "Darwinism." 

 From "Natural Selection," which was publish* 

 millan & Co., 1871, the following extracts are taken. The 

 theme has received important development at the hands of 

 Professor E. B. Poulton, in his "The Colours of Animals, " 

 International Scientific Series, 1S90: and in F. E. B*. ] 

 "Animal Colouration " ; London, Swan Sonnenschcin ; X. V., 

 Macmillan, 1S92 ] 



There is no more convincing proof of the truth 

 of a comprehensive theory, than its power of 

 absorbing and finding a place for new facts, and 

 its capability of interpreting phenomena which 

 had been previously looked upon as unaccount- 

 able anomalies. It is thus that the law of uni- 

 versal gravitation and the undulatory theory 

 of light have become established and universally 

 accepted by men of science. Fact after fact has 

 been brought forward as being apparently in- 

 consistent with them, and one after another these 

 very facts have been shown to be the conse- 

 quences of the laws they were at first supposed 

 to disprove. A false theory will never stand 

 this test. Advancing knowledge brings to light 

 whole groups of facts which it cannot deal with, 

 and its advocates steadily decrease in numbers, 

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