44 CURIOSITIES OF ENTOMOLOGY. 



MIMETIC ANALOGY, 



ILLUSTRATED BY SOUTH AMERICAN BUTTERFLIES. 



MIMETIC ANALOGY is a term used to express the extraordi- 

 nary imitation by one animal of some other animal, which is 

 most frequently of some other group. Sometimes the object 

 imitated is inanimate, as a stone, a bud, a leaf, or a broken 

 twig, instances of which are so common that they have been 

 noticed by the most ordinary observers. " The greater 

 number of animals," says Mr. Tegetmeier, " assume more or 

 less closely the colour and appearance of the objects with 

 which they are generally surrounded. Thus reptiles, such as 

 frogs, snakes, &c., living on the ground, resemble the colour 

 of objects on the earth's surface ; whereas the tree-frogs are 

 usually of a bright green colour, in accordance with the 

 leaves amongst which they spend their lives. Even in birds 

 of bright showy plumage, in which this assimilation of colours 

 would hardly ever be suspected, it frequently prevails. Thus 

 in the beautiful little Australian warbling parrakeets, known 

 generally in this country by the aboriginal name of Bet- 

 cherrygar, the resemblance of the colour to that of the leaves 

 of the Eucalypti, or gum-tree, on which they repose during 

 the mid-day heat, is so close, as Mr. Gould informs us, that 

 though dozens may be perched on a branch, they are hardly 

 to be observed when at rest. Among our own insects the 

 imitation of inanimate objects is not unfrequent : the common 

 buff-tip moth is a familiar example, as when at rest it closely 

 resembles a piece of broken lichen-covered twig, the end of 

 which is simulated by the tips of its closed wings. The use 

 of the terms mimetic analogy and mimicry, as descriptive of 

 these undeniable phenomena, has been strongly objected to 



