Mimicry 285 
concealment (see pp. 275, 276, 278). Such an interpretation of 
mimicry was perfectly consistent with the theological doctrines of 
his day?. 
The last note I have selected from Burchell’s manuscript refers to 
one of the chief mimics of the highly protected Lycid beetles. The 
whole assemblage of African insects with a Lycoid colouring forms 
a@ most important combination and one which has an interesting 
bearing upon the theories of Bates and Fritz Miiller. This most 
wonderful set of mimetic forms, described in 1902 by Guy A. K. 
Marshall, is composed of flower-haunting beetles belonging to the 
family Lycidae, and the heterogeneous group of varied insects which 
mimic their conspicuous and simple scheme of colouring. The Lycid 
beetles, forming the centre or “models” of the whole company, are 
orange-brown in front for about two-thirds of the exposed surface, 
black behind for the remaining third. They are undoubtedly pro- 
tected by qualities which make them excessively unpalatable to the 
bulk of insect-eating animals. Some experimental proof of this has 
been obtained by Mr Guy Marshall. What are the forms which 
surround them? According to the hypothesis of Bates they would 
be, at any rate mainly, palatable hard-pressed insects which only 
hold their own in the struggle for life by a fraudulent imitation of 
the trade-mark of the successful and powerful Lycidae. According 
to Fritz Miiller’s hypothesis we should expect that the mimickers 
would be highly protected, successful and abundant species, which 
(metaphorically speaking) have found it to their advantage to possess 
an advertisement, a danger-signal, in common with each other, and 
in common with the beetles in the centre of the group. 
How far does the constitution of this wonderful combination—the 
largest and most complicated as yet known in all the world—convey 
to us the idea of mimicry working along the lines supposed by Bates 
or those suggested by Miiller? Figures 1 to 52 of Mr Marshall’s 
coloured plate? represent a set of forty-two or forty-three species or 
forms of insects captured in Mashonaland, and all except two in the 
neighbourhood of Salisbury. The combination includes six species of 
Lycidae; nine beetles of five groups all specially protected by 
nauseous qualities, Telephoridae, Melyridae, Phytophaga, Lagriidae, 
Cantharidae; six Longicorn beetles; one Coprid beetle; eight 
stinging Hymenoptera ; three or four parasitic Hymenoptera (Bracon- 
idae, a group much mimicked and shown by some experiments to 
be distasteful); five bugs (Hemiptera, a largely unpalatable group); 
three moths (Arctiidae and Zygaenidae, distasteful families) ; one fly. 
1 See Kirby and Spence, An Jntroduction to Entomology (1st edit.), London, Vol. 1. 1817, 
p. 223, 
2 Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. 1902, plate xvi. See alo p. 517, where the group is analysed. 
