497 



X. On some remarkable Mimetic Analogies among African Butterflies 



By Eoland Trimen, Mem. Ent. Soc. Bond. 



(Plates XLII. & XLIII.) 



Head March 5th, 1868. 



****** 



natur 



FEuplcea Niavius, le Diadema dubia, et le Papilio Westermanm , trois Lepidopteres 

 presque completement par le port, le dessin, et la couleur, quoique appartenant a des 

 et de tribus differentes."— Bc-isdttval, Species General des Lepidopteres, pp. 372, 373. 



FHOM the year 1836, when Dr. Boisduval published these remarks, a period of twenty- 

 five years elapsed without any light being thrown upon the meaning of those remarkable 

 resemblances among the Bhopalocera which are familiar to every lepidopterist, which 

 have been noted by entomologists in publications both prior and subsequent to the date 

 of the ' Species General,' and to one of the most striking of which the above quotation 

 refers. The extraordinary fact, that in all parts of the world species of Butterflies 

 occurred which, aberrant from the normal fades of their immediate allies, most closely 

 resembled other species of wholly different structure, awakened no comment beyond the 

 admission that it was curious, unless it were some vague suggestion as to " recurrent 

 types " in nature, which left the subject as completely mysterious as before. Entomo- 

 logists, no less than naturalists generally, appeared content with a child-like wonder al 

 this and kindred facts, and let them pass as things inscrutable. That this neglect of 

 inquiry was due in great measure to the absence of reliable observations upon the living 

 insects in their native haunts, cannot be doubted; but it may be questioned if, with all 

 the data now accumulated by various explorers, those whose energies were necessarily, 

 and in many cases exclusively, concentrated upon the arduous work of the sy stemat . it 

 would have been enabled to elucidate the subject. It remained for one of those adven- 

 turous lovers of nature whose zeal for discovery leads them to years of tropica wander- 

 ings, to indicate, from his own assiduous observations, and in the light of that compre- 

 hensive theory of organic nature which we owe to Mr. Darwin the rational explanation 

 of these phenomena: That this explanation is absolutely conclusive or not susceptib , 

 of future modification, it would be premature to assert ; but it is indisputably the only 



. . ., , .. „f j.i,o^i'fflfiilt,v and so reasonable a demons: ration 



advance yet made towards the solution of the aimcmty , aim » 



as to commend itself to every thoughtful observer. I need scarcely say -hat 1 .n to to 

 the well-known treatise by Mr. Bates on the Eeliconid* of the Amazons Valley (published 

 in the twenty-tbird volume of the ■ Transactions of the Lmneau Society ) ,n which the 



J i. oioxr nrmlipd in elucidation of the origin and 



principle of natural selection is most ably applied me * 



, ^ ' i » * uamoot »ta now so astonishingly exact 



development of those « mimicries " of whichmany ait nou j ^ 



The 



VOL. XXVI. 



