WAYS OF NATURE 
would be set down as a clear case of mimicry. There 
is such a moth in England, too, where no humming- 
bird is found. Why should not Nature repeat herself 
in this way? This moth feeds upon the nectar of 
flowers like the hummingbird, and why should it 
not have the hummingbird’s form and manner? 
Then there are accidental resemblances in nature, 
such as the often-seen resemblance of knots of trees 
and of vegetables to the human form, and of a cer- 
tain fungus to a part of man’s anatomy. We have a 
fly that resembles a honey-bee. In my bee-hunting 
days I used to call it the “mock honey-bee.” It 
would come up the wind on the scent of my bee box 
and hum about it precisely like a real bee. Of course 
it was here before the honey-bee, and has been 
evolved quite independently of it. It feeds upon the 
pollen and nectar of flowers like the true bee, and is, 
therefore, of similar form and color. The honey-bee 
has its enemies; the toads and tree-frogs feed upon 
it, and the kingbird captures the slow drone. 
When an edible butterfly mimics an inedible or 
noxious one, as is frequently the case in the tropics, 
the mimicker is no doubt the gainer. 
It makes a big difference whether the mimicker 
is seeking to escape from an enemy, or seeking to 
deceive its prey. I fail to see how, in the latter case, 
any disguise of form or color could be brought about. 
Our shrike, at times, murders little birds and eats 
out their brains, and it has not the form, or the 
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