108 MIMICRY, AND OTHER PROTECTIVE 
Objections to Mr. Bates’ Theory of Mimicry. 
Having now completed our survey of the most pro- 
minent and remarkable cases of mimicry that have yet 
been noticed, we must say something of the objections 
that have been made to the theory of their production 
given by Mr. Bates, and which we have endeavoured to 
illustrate and enforce in the preceding pages. Three 
counter explanations have been proposed. Professor: 
Westwood admits the fact of the mimicry and its pro- 
bable use to the insect, but maintains that each species 
was created a mimic for the pufpose of the protection 
thus afforded it. Mr. Andrew Murray, in his paper on 
the ‘ Disguises of Nature,”’ inclines to the opinion that 
similar conditions of food and of surrounding circum- 
stances have acted in some unknown way to produce the 
resemblances ; and when the subject was discussed before 
the Entomological Society of London, a third objection 
was added—that heredity or the reversion to ancestral 
types of form and colouration, might have produced 
many of the cases of mimicry. 
Against the special creation of mimicking species 
there are all the objections and difficulties in the way 
of special creation in other cases, with the addition of 
a few that are peculiar to it. The most obvious is, 
that we have gradations of mimicry and of protective 
resemblance—a fact which is strongly suggestive of a 
natural process having been at work. Another very 
serious objection is, that as mimicry has been shown 
to be useful only to those’ species and groups which 
