76. MIMICRY, AND OTHER PROTECTIVE 
protecting the flies from the attacks of the bees, and 
the connection is so evident that it was hardly possible 
to avoid this conclusion. The resemblance, however, 
of moths to butterflies or to bees, of. beetles to wasps, 
and of locusts to beetles, has been many times noticed 
by eminent writers; but scarcely ever till within the 
last few years does it appear to have been considered 
that these resemblances had any special purpose, or 
were of any direct benefit to the insects themselves, 
In this respect they were looked upon as accidental, 
as instances of the “curious analogies” in nature 
which must be wondered at but which could not be ex- 
plained. Recently, however, these instances have been 
greatly multiplied; the nature of the resemblances 
has been more carefully studied, and it has been found 
that they are often carried out into such details as 
almost to imply a purpose of deceiving the observer. 
The phenomena, moreover, have been shown to follow 
certain definite laws, which again all indicate their 
dependence on the more general law of the “ survival 
of the fittest,”’ or ‘‘ the preservation of favoured races 
in the struggle for life.” It will, perhaps, be as well 
here to state what these laws or general conclusions 
are, and then to give some account of the facts which 
“ support them. 
The first law is, that in an overwhelming majority of 
cases of mimicry, the animals (or the groups) which 
resemble each other inhabit the same country, the same 
district, and in most cases are to be found together 
on the very same spot. 
