THEORIES OF MIMICRY 569 



almost inevitable collision with these outstretched wing-borders. To 

 lunge at a thing and miss it is inevitably to be carried on, the next in- 

 stant, close past it. To put it from the insect's point of view, barely 

 to dodge an onrushing foe, is, as we all know, to have him almost 

 inevitably brush against us, to say the least, as his impetus carries him 

 forward. It would be absurd to doubt the very great likelihood of 

 mutilation to the butterfly's wing-borders at such a moment. Again; 

 a bird struggling, against difficulties, to seize such a thing as a zigzag- 

 ging butterfly, inevitably tries for the mass of the target, the most 

 visible part. Now, although the wings do, certainly, more or less wag 

 the body up and down, nevertheless the body is the axis of the mill- 

 wheel of which the wing-borders are the floats, so that even if the bird 

 tried for the body, unless the attack came exactly from behind, the 

 flapping wings would tend to protect it by constantly getting in the way 

 of the bird's beak, but this would be at the expense of these delicate 

 fabrics, which would smash themselves against it. So much for the 

 immensely greater risk of every sort to this delicate border than to the 

 body itself. 



Now as to the supposition that birds prefer to seize this border 

 region, rather than the body. One simple fact suffices to show us that 

 we have not the slightest evidence that they do so. It is this. A but- 

 terfly seized by his body can not escape (unless, of course, he chance to 

 be cut nearly through by the beak that seized him) while one seized by 

 the wing-border is no more detained by being thus seized than by re- 

 ceiving at this point any of the merely accidental injuries above re- 

 ferred to. Now if a butterfly seized by the body, is generally eaten, 

 while on the other hand every butterfly injured as to its l order, escapes, 

 what possible significance has our finding, as we do, mainly border 

 injuries ? 



Now, although it seems scarcely necessary to finish the argument, to 

 consider for a moment the supposed selection by the bird, of special 

 points along these borders, the reader has been sufficiently reminded 

 how very far the bird is, in one of these chases, from being in a position 

 to select a point of attack. 



"We find that the whole subject of animals' coloration has been 

 handled with very loose thinking, as if the old time disrespect of natural 

 history still haunted men's minds and dissuaded them from real study. 

 This cloud that enveloped natural history in former centuries has been 

 steadily thinning, but it is certainly accountable for many loosenesses 

 even up to the present time. 



For instance, it is perfectly plain to-day that nature would not ask 

 a coral snake to get along with a costume which, while it often served 

 to warn off his enemies, proved, at other times, a disadvantage to him 

 by identifying him to the animals which he wished to eat. The writings 

 upon these subjects, down to the present day, teem with just this kind 



VOL. lxxv. — 38. 



