MIMICRY. 465 



result from certain efforts of the insect, in the employment of 

 those instincts and instruments with which Providence has fur- 

 nished it for this purpose.* Thus, in a little book on British 

 Hawk Moths, the writer states that some of these insects " seem 

 to put all their trust in a resemblance they may bear to some 

 natural object, which by a wonderful and unerring instinct they 

 seldom fail to find." f Many of the illustrations given by authors 

 of protective resemblances and mimicry are " passive," and con- 

 sidered as the result of natural selection, slowly accentuating and 

 perpetuating the current of variation that makes for protection, 

 and of which, on every philosophical consideration, the animal 

 thus evolved can have no consciousness, beyond a more or less 

 habit of adaptation to its environment ; in fact, a Cartesian would 

 say the whole phenomenon was indicative of animal automatism. 

 But it is open to strong suggestion that this is only one, and a 

 subordinate phase of the phenomenon, and that animals of their 

 own volition, and in their efforts to avoid their enemies, place 

 themselves where possible in such adaptation to their surround- 

 ings, that protective resemblance and some forms of mimicry are 

 due to animal intelligence, and not so entirely to what is generally 

 understood as the unconscious process of natural selection. J 

 Mr. Coe has also affirmed that "there is an enormous amount 

 of evidence, which shows that animals are conscious of the pro- 

 tection afforded by colour, and that they assist the ' disguises ' 

 which arise from their likeness to inanimate objects by their own 

 intelligence and contrivance." § Thus Mr. Wakefield Richardson 

 has recently recorded an observation he made by which a Wren 



* ' Introd. Entomology,' 2nd edit. p. 404. — Prof. Henslow has also quite 

 recently remarked " that there appears to be two distinct kinds of mimicry: 

 (1) automatic and unconscious ; (2) brought about by conscious action of the 

 creature." (' Journ. Roy. Horticultural Soc' xxiii. p. 28 (1899).) 



f W. J. Lucas, ' Book of Brit. Hawk Moths,' p. 13. 



I Col. Pollok has suggested an excellent example of limited intelligence 

 in the Tiger: — "All Deer possess an acute sense of smell, and against it a 

 Tiger has to contend before he can provide his larder with game ; but how 

 does he manage it ? We cannot give him the credit of the intellect of man, 

 who, in pursuit of game, is well aware nothing can be done down wind. 

 Were it so, not a Sambur or Deer would be left alive. The Tiger would bag 

 them all just as he pleased, — in fact, he would then be able to kill any Deer 

 when he wanted it." (' Zoologist,' 1898, p. 155.) 



§ ' Nature versus Natural Selection,' p. 171. 



Zool. 4th ser. vol. III., October, 1899. 2 h 



