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AFRICAN MIMETIC BUTTERFLIES 



These types of coloration may be arranged as follows : — 



I. APATETIC COLOURS. 



Colours resembling some part of the environment or the appearance of another 

 species. 



A. Cryptic Colours. 



1. Procryptic Colours. 



Protective Resemblance 

 a dead leaf. 



2. Anticryptic Colours. 



Aggressive Resemblance. 



B. Pseudosematic Colours. 



1. Pseudaposematic Colours. 



False Warning Colours. Ex. A moth which resembles a hornet. 



2. Pseudepisematic Colours. 



Aggressive Mimicry and Alluring Colours. Ex. A mantis which resembles 

 a flower and so attracts its prey. 



II. SEMATIC COLOURS. 



1. Aposematic Colours. 



True Warning Colours. Ex. The well-known appearance of wasps, hornets, &c. 



2. Episematic Colours. 



Recognition Marks. Ex. The white tail of a rabbit, 



III. EPIGAMIC COLOURS. 



Colours displayed during -^courtship. Ex. The peacock's tail. 



This table is given in ' The Colours of Animals ' in a much more extended form, but the 

 above condensation will be found to suffice for the proper understanding of the terms usually 

 met with in papers dealing with our present subject. 



Inasmuch as the term Pseudaposematic conveys the idea of false warning colours it 

 is hardly quite appropriate for cases of what will presently be described as Miillerian mimicry, 

 for in these cases, although the coloration is intended to convey the false impression that 

 an animal is of the same species as another which is really of a different kind, at the same time 

 the colours of the former are as much a true signal of actual unpleasantness as are those 

 of the latter. On the other hand the term aposematic, which is used to express true warning 

 colours, does not simultaneously express the idea that in a Miillerian group the same colours 

 are used as a warning by different species. Miillerian resemblance between two or more 

 species is therefore known as Synaposematic coloration. 



Our present study deals only with the resemblances which are found to occur between 

 butterflies of different genera, and including in a few cases certain moths. It may be asked 

 why butterflies should be selected as especially illustrating the course of evolution and 

 natural selection. The reply is that insects, by their extraordinary adaptations and rapid 

 succession of generations, afford probably more excellent and fruitful material for such 

 investigations than do animals of other orders, whilst butterflies in particular, owing to the 

 elaborate colour patterns of their wings, furnish the best guide to the study of those phases 

 of development which, though in their case illustrated, as it were, by a series of wing pictures, 



Ex. The butterfly Kallima inachis resembling 



Ex. A mantis which looks like a leaf. 



