116 THE VALUE OF COLOUR 



mimicked by other insects as the sand-wasps, 

 ordinary wasps and bees. Thus on Feb. 17, 

 1901, Guy A. K. Marshall captured, near Salis- 

 bury, Mashonaland, three similar species of ants 

 (Hymenoptera) with a bug (Hemiptera) and a 

 Locustid (Orthoptera), the two latter mimicking 

 the former. All the insects, seven in number, 

 were caught on a single plant, a small bushy 

 vetch. 1 



This is an interesting recent example from 

 South Africa, and large numbers of others might 

 be added the observations of many naturalists 

 in many lands ; but nearly all of them known 

 since that general awakening of interest in the 

 subject which was inspired by the great hypotheses 

 of H. W. Bates and Fritz Muller. We find, how- 

 ever, that Burchell had more than once recorded 

 the mimetic resemblance to ants. An extremely 

 ant-like bug (the larva of a species of Alydus) 

 in his Brazilian collection is labelled * 1141 ', with 

 the date Dec. 8, 1826, when Burchell was at the 

 Rio das Pedras, Cubatao, near Santos. In the 

 notebook the record is as follows : '1141 Cimex. 

 I collected this for a Formica.' 



Some of the chief mimics of ants are the active 

 little hunting spiders belonging to the family 

 Attidae. Many examples have been brought for- 

 ward during recent years, especially by my friends 

 Dr. and Mrs. Peckham, of Milwaukee, the great 

 authorities on this group of Arachnids. Here too 



1 Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond., 1902, 535, plate xix, figs. 53-9. 



