NOTES AND LITEEATTJEE 



MIMICRY IN BUTTERFLIES 



American biologists have been somewhat in a quandary of 

 late as to what to believe and to teach about "mimicry" in in- 

 sects. The consideration of chance resemblances in animate and 

 inanimate things in which mimicry in the strict sense could not 

 possibly exist, and the widespread skepticism of natural selec- 

 tion as an effective, creative agency in evolution have made many 

 of us inclined to bury mimicry in the same grave with telegony, 

 prenatal influences, the inheritance of acquired somatic charac- 

 ters, and sexual selection. Meanwhile, the Oxford school of 

 zoologists, under Professor Poulton's leadership and the inspira- 

 tion of an orthodox faith in the potency of natural selection, 

 have continued to accumulate a rich array of newly discovered 

 models and mimics among African butterflies. 



Many of these and other cases of mimicry are described in the 

 opening chapters of Professor R. C. Punnett's interesting book 

 and admirably portrayed in the sixteen plates, twelve of which 

 are in colors. "With a remarkably clear and convincing style 

 that has become familiar to us through his popular little book 

 on Mendelism Punnett here recounts the history of the theories 

 of Bates and Miiller, mentions some of the morphological fea- 

 tures upon which real affinities among butterflies depend, and 

 describes in some detail examples of mimicry from various parts 

 of the world. 



Of particular interest to us in the United States is his brief 

 discussion of the supposed mimicry of Papilio philenor by P. 

 troilus, by the black southern variety, usually called glaucus, 

 of the female of our common turnus, 2 and by a third species, 

 P. asterius (usually known by us as P. polyxenes, or P. asterias). 

 The northward extension of the range of troilus into Northwest 

 Canada, far beyond that of the supposed model philenor, is 

 thought to weaken this as a case of mimicry, and the author con- 

 cludes that 



i" Mimicry in Butterflies," by E. C. Punnett, Cambridge Univ. Press, 

 1915, 8vo., pp. 159, 16 plates. 



2 Punnett transposes these names, following Poulton (vide Annals Entom. 

 Soc. America, Vol. 2, 1909, p. 225), who adopts Rothschild and Jordan's 



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