94 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 



the insectivorous birds. Numerous species of the genus Danais 

 (PL I, Fig. 8), Amauris (PL I, Fig. 5), Euplcea (PL III, Fig. 25, 27), 

 and Acrcca (PL II, Fig. 2), and also many species of Papilio and 

 other genera, enjoy the advantage of unpleasant taste, if not even of 

 poisonousness ; they are, therefore, secure from pursuit, and are, in 

 consequence, much mimicked by palatable butterflies. 



As a further example, I now select a diurnal butterfly from 

 Africa, Papilio merope Cramer 1 , which was shown by Trimen in 

 1868 to be mimetic. The species has a wide distribution, for, if we 

 except slight local differences in the marking of the male, its range 

 extends over the greater part of Africa, from Abyssinia to the Cape, 

 and from East Africa to the Gold Coast. 



The male is a beautiful large butterfly, yellowish white, with a 

 touch of black, and with little tails to the posterior wings (PL I, Fig. 1), 

 like our own swallowtail. A very nearly related species occurs in 

 Madagascar, and there the female is similarly coloured, though it may 

 be distinguished by having a little more black on the wing. On the 

 mainland of Africa, however, the females of Papilio merope are so 

 different in colour and form of wing that it would be difficult to 

 believe them of the same species as the male had not both sexes more 

 than once been reared from the eggs of one mother. The females 

 (PL I, Fig. 6) in South Africa imitate a species of Amauris, A. echeria 

 (PL I, Fig. 7), of a dark ground-colour with white, or brownish- white, 

 mirrors and spots, and they resemble it most deceptively. But what 

 makes the case more interesting in its theoretical aspect is that 

 Danais echeria of Cape Colony is markedly different from Danais 

 echeria of Natal, and the female of Papilio meropehsis followed those two 

 local varieties, and has likewise a Cape and a Natal local form. Even 

 this is not all, for in Cape Colony there are two other females of 

 Papilio merope. One of them has a yellow ground-colour, and resembles 

 Danais chrysipjpus, which is extremely abundant there (PL I, Fig. 3) ; 

 the other is entirely different (PL I, Fig. 4), for it closely mimics another 

 Danaid occurring in the same districts of Africa, and also immune, 

 Amauris niavius (PL I, Fig. 5), not only in the beautiful pure white 

 and deep black of the wing surface, but also in the distribution of 

 these colours to form a pattern. 



We have thus in Africa four different females of Papilio merope, 

 each of which mimics a protected species of Danaid. They are not always 



1 The West African form of Papilio merope has been quite recently distinguished 

 from the southern form and regarded as a distinct species, the latter being now called 

 Papilio cenea. The differences in the males are very slight — somewhat shorter wings, 

 shorter wing-tail, and so on — differences which seem relatively unimportant in com- 

 parison with the differences between the males and the females. 



