Theory of Mimicry Criticised 
(Tetrapteryx paradisea) it is the innermost or 
tertiary quills of wing; in one of the egrets 
some of the feathers of the upper back grow 
to a great length and form a train; in the Bird 
of Paradise (Paradisea apoda) the long flank 
plumes are commonly mistaken for the tail. 
In these cases there can be no question of 
mimicry. 
7. We have shown that the idea that imitator 
and imitated are always found in the same area 
is absolutely fallacious. In birds, for example, 
the most striking resemblances appear to occur 
between species that dwell far apart. 
8. We can cite, as parallel to the case of a 
mimicking species of which the male copies one 
model and the female another, the strange 
similarity between the barred brown plumage 
of the female blackcock and that of the female 
eider-duck. The males of these species, although 
both black and white, differ greatly in appear- 
ance ; but the male blackcock is admittedly very 
like the male of another species of sea-duck—the 
scoter. 
9. Against the supposed ancestral non- 
mimetic forms existing on islands we can pit 
the “ mimetic” orioles in small islands and their 
non-mimetic cousins on the mainland. In 
Australia an oriole of what appears to be an 
ancestral style lives beside, but declines to 
mimic, a friar bird of a very pronounced type. 
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