220 
EE VIEWS. 
shade and stripe of colour and even in the shape of its wings, that 
Mr. Bates, with his eyes sharpened by collecting during eleven years, 
was, “ though always on my guard,” continually deceived. When 
the mockers and the mocked are caught and compared they are found 
to be totally different in essential structure, and to belong not only 
to distinct genera, but often to distinct families. If this mimicry 
had occurred in only one or two instances, it might have been passed 
over as a strange coincidence. But travel a hundred miles, more or 
less, from a district where one Leptalis imitates one Ithomia, and a 
distinct mocker and mocked, equally close in their resemblance, will 
be found. Coloured drawings of seven mocking forms of Leptalis, 
and six mocked forms of Ithomia , and one of another genus are 
given. Altogether no less than ten genera are enumerated, which 
include species that imitate other butterflies. The mockers and 
mocked always inhabit the same region ; we never find an imi¬ 
tator living remote from the form which it counterfeits. The mockers 
are almost invariably rare insects ; the mocked in almost every case 
abound in swarms. In the same district in which a species of Leptalis 
closely imitates an Ithomia, there are sometimes other Lepidoptera 
mimicking the sam ^Ithomia; so that in the same place, species of three 
genera may be found all closely resembling a species of a fourth genus. 
It is highly remarkable that even moths, notwithstanding their dis¬ 
similarity in structure and general habits of life, sometimes so closely 
imitate butterflies (these butterflies being simultaneously mocked by 
others) that, as Mr. Bates says, when “ seen on the wing in their 
native woods, they deceive the most experienced eye.” These several 
facts and relations carry the strongest conviction to the mind that 
there must be some intimate bond between the mocking and mocked 
butterflies. It may, however, be naturally asked, wdiy is the one 
considered as the mocked form ; and why are the others, or two or 
three other butterflies which inhabit the same district in scanty num¬ 
bers, considered as the mockers ? Mr. Bates satisfactorily answers 
this question, by showing that the form which is imitated keeps the 
usual dress of the group to which it belongs, whilst the counterfeiters 
have changed their dress and do not resemble their nearest allies. 
In these facts, of which only a brief abstract has been given, we 
have the most striking case ever recorded of what naturalists call 
analogical resemblance. By this term naturalists mean the re¬ 
semblance in shape, for instance, of a whale to a fish—of certain 
snake-like Batrachians to true snakes—of the little burrowing and 
social pachydermatous Hyrax to the rabbit, and other such cases. 
We can understand resemblances, such as these, by the adaptation of 
different animals to similar habits of life. But it is scarcely possible 
to extend this view to the variously coloured stripes and spots on 
butterflies; more especially as these are known often to differ greatly 
in the two sexes. Why then, we are naturally eager to know, has one 
butterfly or moth so often assumed the dress of another quite distinct 
form; why to the perplexity of naturalists has Nature condescended 
