NYMPH ALID.E. DIADEM A. 



it that our older naturalists considered them as one species. The resemblance, 

 indeed, is so great, that, omitting to look at the arrangement of the nervures, the 

 black spots at the base of the anterior wings of Diadenia are the only guide to dis- 

 tinction. In the two plates of Acraa there is no figure which is closely represented 

 by figure 9 of the present plate. Figures 8 of Diadema and 30 of Acraea are, how- 

 ever, remarkably like each other. As a rule the females of a species differ much 

 more than the males, the many varieties of the male of Acraea Euryta forming an 

 exception. 



This strange resemblance to each other of distant and very distinct groupes, 

 which forms the romance of natural history, has afforded wonder and delight to every 

 naturalist, and will do so to the end of time, the more so because of its mystery, 

 unless some much better explanation is offered than that proposed by Darwin and 

 his followers, because, unluckily for them, it is just those species which superficially 

 bear the closest resemblance to each other that differ most in their fundamental 

 structure. Europe alone seems deficient in some great leading and aristocratic 

 family of butterflies : in America the great typical groupe is confined to the precincts 

 of the New World and its neighbouring islands; whilst Danais of the Eastern 

 Hemisphere has its envoy in the south, the Acrseas of Africa are largely represented 

 in the same country, and are known in the East as well. 



One of the most marvellous things in this representative system is that the great 

 groupes are not only imitated at home, but that the stragglers from two of them in 

 other lauds have their mimics as well ; and in the great South American groupe, the 

 Heliconidae, the butterflies of several genera, completely different in then neuration, 

 are inseparable by the unaided sight. 



Naturalists, Wallace, Bates, and Trimen, who have each studied one of these 

 great grouj.es in their native land, tell as that they exude a liquid of an offensive 

 smell. We have, however, no right to conclude that what may be unpleasant to us 

 is not to them a sweet-smelling royal unction. May not all the imitators of these 

 scented aristocrats be simply votaries of fashion, apeing the dress of their superiors, 

 and, since the females take the lead, " naturally selecting " those of the gayest 

 colours? 



