Mimicry 285 



concealment (see pp. 275, 276, 278). Such an interpretation of 

 mimicry was perfectly consistent with the theological doctrines of 

 his day 1 . 



The last note I have selected from Burchell's manuscript refers to 

 one of the chief mimics of the highly protected Lycid beetles. The 

 whole assemblage of African insects with a Lycoid colouring forms 

 a most important combination and one which has an interesting 

 bearing upon the theories of Bates and Fritz Muller. This most 

 wonderful set of mimetic forms, described in 1902 by Guy A. K. 

 Marshall, is composed of flower-haunting beetles belonging to the 

 family Lycldae, and the heterogeneous group of varied insects which 

 mimic their conspicuous and simple scheme of colouring. The Lycid 

 beetles, forming the centre or " models " of the whole company, are 

 orange-brown in front for about two-thirds of the exposed surface, 

 black behind for the remaining third. They are undoubtedly pro- 

 tected by qualities which make them excessively unpalatable to the 

 bulk of insect-eating animals. Some experimental proof of this has 

 been obtained by Mr Guy Marshall. What are the forms which 

 surround them? According to the hypothesis of Bates they would 

 be, at any rate mainly, palatable hard-pressed insects which only 

 hold their own in the struggle for life by a fraudulent imitation of 

 the trade-mark of the successful and powerful Lycidae. According 

 to Fritz Midler's hypothesis we should expect that the mimickers 

 would be highly protected, successful and abundant species, which 

 (metaphorically speaking) have found it to their advantage to possess 

 an advertisement, a danger-signal, in common with each other, and 

 in common with the beetles in the centre of the group. 



How far does the constitution of this wonderful combination — the 

 largest and most complicated as yet known in all the world — convey 

 to us the idea of mimicry working along the lines supposed by Bates 

 or those suggested by Muller ? Figures 1 to 52 of Mr Marshall's 

 coloured plate 2 represent a set of forty-two or forty-three species or 

 forms of insects captured in Mashonaland, and all except two in the 

 neighbourhood of Salisbury. The combination includes six species of 

 Lycidae ; nine beetles of five groups all specially protected by 

 nauseous qualities, Telephoridae, Melyridae, Phytophaga, Lagriidae, 

 Cantharidae ; six Longicorn beetles ; one Coprid beetle ; eight 

 stinging Hymenoptera ; three or four parasitic Hymenoptera (Bracon- 

 idae, a group much mimicked and shown by some experiments to 

 be distasteful) ; five bugs (Hemiptera, a largely unpalatable group) ; 

 three moths (Arctiidae and Zygaenidac, distasteful families) ; one fly. 



1 See Kirby and Spence, An Introduction to Entomology (1st edit.), London, Vol. II. 1817, 

 p. 223. 



2 Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. 1902, plate xvm. See also p. 517, where the group is analysed. 



