MIMICRY 219 



made fast alongside the other bundle. The spider 

 towing her bundle behind her was a comical sight. 

 At this point I left off to make a midday meal, 

 intending to resume operations later on, but a heavy 

 thunderstorm almost entirely destroyed the web, and 

 I was compelled to leave Matang early next morning. 

 All the insects introduced into the web were captured 

 in its immediate vicinity, and it may reasonably be 

 supposed that any of them might have flown into the 

 web of their own accord. From the experiments one 

 gathers that Nephila maculata hot only has very pro- 

 nounced likes and dislikes, but also possesses great 

 powers of discriminating between insects without 

 employing her organs of taste. Anything more prompt 

 than her rejection of the yellow and black bugs could 

 not be imagined, and it was a striking demonstration 

 of the efficiency of warning coloration which may be 

 commended to the notice of scoffers. 



With such enthusiasm do recent supporters of the 

 mimetic theory pursue their studies that they are prone 

 to regard every butterfly as protected either by (i) 

 nauseous properties duly advertised, (2) mimetic fea- 

 tures (Miillerian or Batesian), or (3) cryptic colouring, 

 these latter being considered palatable. They seem 

 inclined to maintain that if a butterfly is not crypti- 

 cally coloured then it is either a mimic or a warningly 

 coloured nauseous species. And yet there are many 

 facts which do not accord with this Procrustean 

 method. One of the commonest butterflies in Sara- 

 wak was the little obscurely coloured Ypthima pan- 

 docus ; on mountains it is more or less displaced by 

 the equally abundant Y. fasciata. According to current 

 theories of mimicry these two species are protected 



