66 A NATURALIST IN THE TRANSVAAL. 



These varieties are very scarce, but both are also mimicked 

 elsewhere by the female Hypolimnas. The same thing 

 occurs in India, where, however, the mimicker of the 

 var. dorippus is somewhat abundant, while the mimicked 

 form is very seldom seen. Thus we have a butterfly 

 mimicking a form which is almost extinct, and to a 

 superficial observer weakening the theory which explains 

 these anomalies. But it is necessary in all these cases 

 to carry the mind back to the time when the butter- 

 flies, like all other living forms, were slowly establishing 

 themselves by those qualities and appearances w T hich, 

 under the law of natural selection, enabled them to 

 survive the struggle for existence. It was then that 

 what we call " mimicry " which is only one of a multi- 

 tude of laws which govern the coloration of animals first 

 arose, and butterflies which slightly resembled uneatable 

 species, or had somewhat the appearance of inanimate 

 objects, would escape perils common to their kind, and 

 these would thus become the dominant breed of the 

 species, and be continually under the same selective 

 process, till the disguise was almost perfect. If, then, 

 we now find the present scarce form of the species so 

 largely mimicked, it seems absolutely certain by the sur- 

 vival of the mimicry that it must have been once the 

 dominant form of the species at least in India and 

 has since, in the recurrent changes of nature, been 

 almost replaced by the present form we so well know *. 

 The food-plant of this butterfly (Gomplwcarpus, sp.), 

 which grows and blooms upon the most dry and barren 

 parts of the veld as well as where moisture is found, 

 is universally distributed in patches or small groups 

 and is one of the earliest plants to spring up and 

 bloom when the cold nights of the dry season become 

 less severe. Its flowers are visited by many insects. 

 From them I have collected some half-dozen species 

 of Cetoma and some showy representatives of the 

 Heteromera, as well as Gallerucidae and Coccinellidae. 

 Many Diptera and Hymenoptera visit the bloom, 



* For these views regarding the evolution of the species in India, I am 

 largely indebted to Colonel Swinhoe, the well-known Indian lepidopterist. 



