36 SOUTH-AFEICAN BUTTEEFLIES. 
four butterflies (of three different groups) and a Moth all copy the 
Danaine Itliomia Flora. The imitations of species of ItTiomia^ Mecha" 
nitis, and Ifethona, Danaine genera, by species of Leptalis^ a genus of 
FieTincG, are so surprisingly exact, that no one can wonder at their 
deceiving on the wing the most experienced collector. 
Mr. Wallace, in 1864, called attention to the occurrence of a 
similar series of mimicries in India and the Malayan Archipelago, and 
expressed his full concurrence in Mr. Bates's view of the causes at 
work in the production of them. The list given in his paper 
{Trans. Linn. Soc, xxv. p. 20) includes fifteen cases where species of 
Fapilio mimic Fanainw, Nyinphalinm (one case), and other forms of 
their own genus.-^ The first of these may be noted as peculiarly 
interesting, seeing that the male and female of the mimicker, Fapilio 
paradoxa, differ considerably, and that each imitates the corresponding 
sex of Fuplcea Midamns. In seven of the fifteen cases given, only the 
female is mimetic ; and Mr. Wallace suggested that the reason for this 
is probably that the slower flight of that sex when laden with eggs, 
and her exposure to attack while ovipositing, render a protective dis- 
guise specially necessary.^ 
It was most interesting to me to be able to supplement the cases 
brought forward by these distinguished explorers of South America and 
the Malayan Archipelago by a corresponding series of mimetic analogies 
among African butterflies. The cases in life known to me personally 
in South Africa were only four, but it so happens that one of them was 
the most remarkable ever recorded, viz., that of Fapilio Cenea. I 
found, however, seven other very marked mimicries among the butter- 
flies of Tropical Africa, and several additional instances (two of them 
in South Africa) have since then (1868) been discovered and placed 
on record. I was able to show ^ (1°) that the Fanaince and Acrceinm 
of Africa, like their allies elsewhere, were provided with ofiensive 
odours and secretions ; (2*") that the butterflies mimicking them invari- 
ably occurred in the same districts, and in six cases (South African) in 
which, on the ground " that a certain number of individuals of distasteful species have to be 
sacrificed to the inexperience " of young insectivorous animals, he shovi^s that there would 
be a great gain in one distasteful species resembling another which exceeded it in numbers." 
Mr. Bates {loc. cit., p, 503) marks six of the imitating Danaincc as undoubtedly very 
much fewer in individuals than the species which they imitate ; so that the fact of their 
being for some reason in need of protection seems established, 
^ Mr, Wallace observes (p. 2i) that these imitated Papilios of the East belong to the 
group of Papilio Polydorus and P. Coon, and that, like the jEneas group of Papilio in South 
America, they are forest insects and have a low, weak flight. What their protection con- 
sists in has not been ascertained, but most probably it lies in their being unpalatable as food. 
2 A most striking case of this kind is that recorded by Mr. Wallace [Trans. Ent. Soc. 
Lond., 1869, p. 287). Diadema anomala, a Nymphaline of the Malay Archipelago, has the 
male plainly tinted with bronzy or olive brown, only a blue gloss appearing on the margins of 
the fore-wings ; while the female is rich purple-brown, with two-thirds of the fore-wings 
richly glossed with satiny blue, so as to closely imitate Euplcea Midamus, a protected 
Danaine, "one of the very commonest butterflies of the East." 
3 Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond., xxvi. p. 497, &c. 
