THE INTELLECTUAL OBSERVER. 



DECEMBER, 1864. 



MIMETIC ANALOGY. 



BY W. B. TEGETMEIER. 

 (With a Coloured Plate.) 



The theory of mimetic analogy is one that endeavours to 

 account for a large and extensive series of phenomena that 

 have long been known to observant naturalists. The pheno- 

 mena themselves are indisputable, but hitherto no satisfactory 

 explanation has been offered to account for their existence. 



By mimetic analogy is meant the fact that one animal often 

 possesses a very close resemblance to some other animal, 

 which is most frequently of a very distinct group. Sometimes 

 the object mimicked is an inanimate one — a stone, a bud, a 

 leaf, or a broken twig. Instances of this latter kind of re- 

 semblance are so common as to strike even the most casual 

 observer. The greater number of animals assume more 

 or less closely the colour and appearance of the objects with 

 which they are generally surrounded. Thus reptiles, such as 

 frogs, snakes, etc., living on the ground, resemble the colour of 

 objects on the earth's surface; whereas the tree-frogs are 

 usually of a bright green colour, in accordance with the leaves 

 amongst which they spend their lives. Even in birds of bright 

 showy plumage, in which this assimilation of colours would 

 hardly ever be suspected, it frequently prevails. Thus in the 

 beautiful little Australian warbling parrakeets, known generally 

 in this country by the aboriginal name of Betcherrygar, the 

 resemblance of the colour to that of the leaves of the Eucalypti, 

 or Gum trees, on which they repose during the mid-day heat, 

 is so close, as Mr. Gould informs us, that though dozens may 

 be perched on a branch, they are hardly to be observed when 

 at rest. Among our own insects the imitation of inanimate 

 objects is not unfrequent : the common buff- tip moth is a 

 familiar example, as when at rest it closely resembles a piece 

 VOL. vi. — no. v. x 



