THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



191 



be more liable than the rest to be devoured 

 in early life by Cannibals, and would therefore 

 be less likely than the rest to propagate tlieir 

 oAvn image in succeeding generations. The 

 whole process, indeed, is so beautifully simple 

 and intelligible, tliat, but for certain pre- 

 possessions and prejudices, it would at once 

 command the assent of every logical miiid. 

 In fact, it is strictly analogous to the com- 

 mon opei'ation of •' rogiiing" a bed of seed- 

 lings, which every gardener is familiar with. 

 The only dill'crenco is that, when the gardener 

 jmlls up what he calls the "rogues" out of a 

 thousand seedling tulips, i. e., those which de- 

 viate from the standard of i)erlection which ho 

 is aiming to attain, ho acts with the dclinitc 

 object of preventing the 

 further propagation of 

 those so-called "rognc^;" 

 whereas, when cannibal 

 animals destroy the 

 " rogues" among the im- 

 itative butterllies, they are 

 of course perfectly igno- 

 rant of the consequences 

 likely to follow, and act 

 wholly and solely for tlie 

 gratification of their o\\ n 

 carnal appetites. 



The great objection, in 

 the minds of many men, 



to this solution of what '^^ 



otherwise seems to be an almost insoluble 

 enigma is, that it proceeds upon Darwinian 

 principles; and Darwin, in their opinion, 

 is a horrible and pernicious monster who 

 holds that Man is nothing but a Gorilla. They 

 might perhaps see the error of tliis belief of 

 theirs, if they would only condescend to 

 read a book before they condemn it. Tn 

 the meantime, if they refuse to accept the 

 explanation of the mystery which has been 

 given above, they are driven to believe that 

 each of these species of imitative butterflies— 

 which usually only extend over a district of 

 country a few hundred miles long and broad, and 

 are then replaced by other species with similar 

 peculiarities— was originally created in the 

 complete possession of all its present abnormal 

 peculiarities of shape and coloration, and placed 

 by the Creator in the very limited district which 

 it now occupies, there to propagate its like for 

 indefinite ages. In other words, instead of one 

 grand general primordial creation, we are com- 

 pelled to believe that there must have been tons 

 of thousands of distinct local creations. For 

 there is not au island in the vast jllinutablc 



ocean, that does not contain certain species of 

 animals and plants that are peculiar to that 

 island, and are found nowhere else upon the 

 face of the globe; and even in so small a district 

 as the United States the fauna and flora of the 

 Pacific States are, as a general rule, specifically 

 distinct from those of the Atlantic States ; and 

 there are actually wide differences between 

 those of the Eastern States and those of the 

 great Valley of the Slississippi ; even when the 

 districts that are compared lie in the same lati- 

 tude and enjoy nearly the same climate. 



But imitative butterflies are not confined to 

 Soutii America, nor to the districts of the Old 

 World specilied by Mr. Bates. On the conti- 

 nent of North America we have but two poor 

 I,' ] 



solitary species of the Danais family — one of 

 which {Danais berenice, Cram.), is confiued to 

 the more southerly regions and the other {D. 

 archippus, Fabr.), being the species represented 

 above in Figure 132, is common almost every- 

 where in the United States. Here, then, there 

 are but two species to be mimicked. Let us 

 see if they find any mimickers. There is a large 

 group of butterflies, known as the j\^i/mpfialis 

 Family, wliich agrees with the Damns Family 

 in the front pair of legs being more or less 

 aborted and functionally impotent, but difters 

 very remarkably in the large cell in the centre 

 of each wing never being closed externally by 

 a distinct tubular vein, and in its being gener- 

 ally altogether open towards the outer margin 

 of the wing. The typical genus {Nymphalis) 

 in this family is normally for the most part of a 

 blue-black or black color, often with a wide 

 white band across the middle of each wing. But 

 there is a single species, the Disippus butterfly, 

 {Xjimphalis disijjjjiis, GoAt .) , of which we here- 

 with present a drawing (Fig. 133), wliich dif- 

 fi/rs widely from the rest in its coloration, and 

 both in the shades of color and in the colora- 



