SPURIOUS MIMICRY. 401 



not live associated together, and even for the most part occur 

 on separate islands. Hence, it is impossible in this case that 

 the resemblance should have originated by selection through 

 mimicry, since protection by imitation against pursuit is here 

 out of the question. 



The question that then occurs is, how such a remarkable 

 likeness in form and colour between two quite distinct crea- 

 tures can have originated. I will investigate this problem by 

 means of yet another example, because it is by this means that 

 we may most easily succeed in ascribing to the influence of 

 mimicry its due proportions, and in showing that this branch of 

 natural selection, like every other, can do no more than avail 

 itself of such characters as already exist for its own purposes — 

 so to speak — but can never be in a jjosition to act as a funda- 



'FlG. lOG.—Jft/xtcola infundibulttm, copied from ClaparMc. 



mental cause, originating differentiation in the form and colour 

 of animals. 



During my last stay at Port Mahon in the Balearic Islands, 

 I found among the polypes of Cladocora cmspitosa — a coral 

 which is there very common — a species, as it seems to me new, 

 of the genus Myxicola (Annelida). I have here given a repro- 

 duction of Claparfede's representation of another species of this 

 genus (fig. 106). The species of this genus spread out the ten- 

 tacles with which the head is furnished — and which are often 

 regai'dedas branchiae — in the form of a funnel ; the sides of this 

 funnel are perfectly closed and are formed of the filaments of 

 the brauchise which lie in the closest contiguity ; the section of 

 the funnel is circular. Each branchial filament has on its 

 inner surface a multitude of fine and minute hairs, which, how- 

 ever, are rendered rigid by having in their interior cartilaginous 

 cells ; these hairs radiate towards the centre of the funnel, so 



