﻿MIMICRY CLASSIFICATION 339 



little importance. 1 The comparatively simple, hypothetical 

 explanation, originally promulgated by Bates, is sometimes called 

 Batesian mimicry; while the " inedible association" hypothesis 

 is termed MuUerian mimicry. 



There is one branch of the subject of mimicry that we think 

 of great interest. This is the resemblance between Insects of 

 different Orders ; or between Insects of the same Order, but be- 

 longing to groups that are essentially different in form and 

 appearance. It is not infrequent for beetles to resemble Hymen- 

 optera, and it is still more frequent for Lepidoptera to resemble 

 Hyinenoptera, and that not only in colour and form, but also in 

 movements and attitude. Druce says : " Many of the species of 

 Zygaenidae are the most wonderful of all the moths ; in some 

 cases they so closely resemble Hymenoptera that at first sight it 

 is almost impossible to determine to which Order they belong." 2 

 W. Muller says: "The little Lepidoptera of the family Glaucopides, 

 that are so like certain wasps as to completely deceive us, have- 

 when alive exactly the same manner of holding their wings, the 

 same restless movements, the same irregular flight as a wasp." 3 

 Seitz and others record a case in which a Brazilian Macroglossa 

 exactly resembles a humming-bird, in company with which it 

 flies ; and the same naturalist also tells us 4 of a Skipper butterfly 

 that greatly resembles a grasshopper of the genus Tettix, and that 

 moreover makes movements like the jumping of grasshoppers. 

 In most of these cases the probabilities of either original 

 similarity, arrested evolution, or the action of similar conditions 

 are excluded : and the hypothesis of the influence, by some means 

 or other, of one organism on another is strongly suggested. 



The classification of Lepidoptera was said by Latreille a 

 century ago to be a reproach to entomologists. Since that time 

 an enormous number of new species and genera have been 

 described, but only recently has much advance been made in 



1 A summary of the chief aspects of the question is contained in Beddard's 

 Animal Coloration, London, 1892. An account of the subject with numerous illus- 

 trations has been given by Haase, " Untersuchungen iiber die Mimicry," Bibl. 

 Zool. iii. 1893, Heft viii. Those who wish to see the case as stated by an advocate 

 may refer to Professor Poulton's work, The Colours of Animals International 

 Scientific Series), lxviii. London, 1890. 



- P. Zool. Soe. London, 1883, p. 372. 



y Kosmos, xix. 1886, p. 353. The Insects alluded to by both these naturalists 

 are now, we believe, placed in the Family Syntomidae see p. 388). 



4 Stett. cut. Zeit. li. 1891, p. 264 ; and lvi. 1895, p. 234. 



