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valuable enough in physiology, helps us no further, and is utterly insufficient as an 
instrument of morphological research. . . . Regard a case of birds or of butterflies, 
or examine the shell of an echinus, or a group of foraminifera, sifted out of the 
first handful of sea-sand. Is it to be supposed for a moment that the beauty of out¬ 
line and colour of the first, the geometrical regularity of the second, or the extreme 
variety and elegance of the third, are any good to the animals ; that they perform any 
of the actions of their lives more easily and better for being bright and graceful, 
rather than if they were dull and plain ? So, to go deeper, is it conceivable that the 
harmonious variation of a common plan, which we find everywhere in Nature, serves 
any utilitarian purpose ; that the innumerable variety of antelopes, of frogs, of 
clupeoid fishes, of beetles and bivalve mollusks, of polyzoa, of actinozoa and 
hydrozoa, are adaptations to as many different kinds of life, and consequently varying 
physiological necessities? Such a supposition with regard to the three last, at any 
rate, would be absurd.” 
Neither can the prismatic colours of the dew-drop and the sparkle of the diamond 
in the hidden mine be thus explained. For the quality we call beauty comes from 
the appreciative mind, and so we ask, may not beauty be for beauty’s sake ? 
Apart from the utility of mimicry (pantomiming) there seems to be some obscure 
love of imitation, as a pleasure for itself apart. 
In by far the greater number of cases the imitation is from the less endowed to 
the higher. Imitation of the bad is the exception, not the rule. Its success in the 
long run would mark a depraved taste, and show a degredation in morals. 
What is urged here is that imitation is inherent in animals, and as such it 
partakes of law ; and, therefore, in this limited sense it is not open to argument or 
logical treatment. 
The case is different when we come to the numerous instances of stratagem in 
action, and disguise for the purpose of outwitting a foe, which, on the score of utility, 
is an important factor in the struggle for existence. 
The characters of mimicry may be ranged under the heads of Mullerism or 
protective, or aggressive, and Batesian, or disgustive. 
The Hymenoptera are eminently an aggressive family. Yet what mimicries do 
we find in those that suffer, enabling them to avoid the attacks of the Ichneumonidae ? 
To come nearer home, what devices succeed best in animals, to help them to avoid the 
predatory and aggressive action of man—man who has been given dominion over 
every living thing? Man’s intellect overrules all, but his senses are often hoodwinked 
by the lower animals. The hare on her form, the sea-bird with her eggs counterfeiting 
the stones of the beach, the crooked geometric caterpillar, and a host of other cases, 
prove how man and animals may be deceived by both sight and sound. 
