144 
PALAWAN. 
that all these mimicking genera are not mimics at all, but are the least divergent members 
of their orders from the ancestral type, a Danais- like form, from which the present Euploeas 
have also to some degree diverged. 
Again, once more applying ornithology Avith regard to our Kepheronia (figs. 5, 6). In 
many groups of birds the colouring and markings of the sexes are at times very different, 
a familiar example of which is our common Blackbird or Wild Duck. The male Blackbird 
is black, the female brown; the young of both sexes alike resembling the female, but more 
spotted on the breast. The young of other species of Thrushes are nearly always spotted, 
though the adult birds of both sexes are not thus marked. Thus the resemblance to the 
ancestral type is still kept up by the young, and we can only conclude that the first forms 
of this genus were spotted Thrush-like birds. 
Now let us once more return to our butterflies, Kepheronia lutescens and its Danais- 
like female. The female butterfly has, like the female Blackbird, departed less from her 
early type, while her mate, like the cock Blackbird, has become highly developed in 
colouring. 
As Danaince is an almost cosmopolitan group, being found on all the great continents 
and on most of the Pacific islands, and, as shown by Mr. Wallace, “ the most widely 
distributed species are probably the most ancient,” we can only conclude that the several 
genera under discussion branched off from the ancestral tree after the appearance of Euplcea. 
That the local varieties of Danais and Euplcea should be mimicked by local varieties of 
Papilio is only what might be expected when we take into consideration that both insects 
have been reared under the same climatal and other circumstances (that is, if they are 
descendants from the same type), as the causes that altered the Euplcea would also act on 
its ally the Papilio. 
The extraordinary resemblance of certain insects to their surroundings—such as leaves, 
twigs, and bark—both in form and coloration is more remarkable than the occasional 
resemblance of species of apparently widely different orders to one another. 
Those insects which receive protection by the wonderful resemblance which they bear 
to the objects on which they rest will, as a rule, allow of closer approach than those which 
do not, and we are thus led to conclude that they are aware of the fact that by remaining 
perfectly still they will escape observation. Writing of Kallima paraleJcta, Mr. Wallace 
tells us: “ at length I was fortunate enough to see the exact spot where the butterfly settled, 
and though I lost sight of it for some time, I at length discovered that it was close before 
my eyes, but that in its position of repose it so closely resembled a dead leaf attached to a 
twfig as almost certainly to deceive the eye even when gazing full upon it ” (‘ The Malay 
Archipelago ’). The insect figured by me is Kallima buxtoni, a fairly common Bornean 
insect; but there are a great many other butterflies which frequent the ground in or about 
the Bornean forests, and when settled amongst the fallen leaves become as it were leaves 
themselves—for example, Melanitis ismene and Thaumantis noureddin \ and I might mention 
a dozen other species. 
Besides the two curious leaf-mimicking grasshoppers figured by me opposite page 50 
(figs. 1 & 3)—of the capture of which I have already given an account—a fairly common 
though rarely noticed insect is the Stick-insect, which is a splendid mimic of the twigs 
