THE ZOOLOGIST 



No. 702.— December, 1899, 



BIOLOGICAL SUGGESTIONS. 

 MIMICRY. 



By W. L. Distant. 



(Continued from p. 470.) 



To revert to " active mimicrj^," * and to render our signification 

 of the term as clear as possible, we will first adduce an instance 

 given by that competent lepidopterist, Georg Semper : — " During 

 the last ten years the well-known white-leaved variety of Acer 

 negundo has been largely planted in gardens in Hamburg, and since 

 this the common White Cabbage Butterfly has accustomed itself to 

 settle by preference on this shrub. It is then extremely difficult 

 to distinguish the butterflies as they sit on the leaves, their 

 yellowish colour being lost in that of the leaves." t Had Ham- 

 burg been a locality in some terra incognita, and visited by a 

 travelling naturalist of observing faculties, who can doubt — and 

 why should surprise be felt under the circumstances — that this 

 observation would have appeared, and been recorded, as an 



* This term receives no support in the best work on Birds yet written. 

 Prof. Newton maintains that mimicry must have the prefix " unconscious," 

 11 which in every department of Zoology should be always expressed or 

 understood"; and, again, wherever mimicry is not only possible, but even 

 probable, "we must always remember that however produced it is uncon- 

 scious" (' Dictionary of Birds,' edit. 1899, pp. 572 and 575.) 



f Cf. Karl Semper's ' Animal Life,' p. 466. 



Zool. Mh ser. vol. III., December, 1899. 2 m 



