bates’ insect fauna, 
221 
to the tricks of the stage ? We remember only one statement, made by 
Mr. Andrew Murray in his excellent paper on the Disguises of Nature, 
namely that insects thus imitating each other usually inhabit the 
same country, which combined with the fact of the imitators being 
rare and the imitated common, might have given a clue to the 
problem. Mr. Bates has given to these facts the requisite touch 
of genius, and has, we cannot doubt, hit on the final cause of 
all this mimicry. The mocked and common forms must habitually 
escape, to a large extent, destruction, otherwise they could not exist 
in such swarms; and Mr. Bates never saw them 'preyed on by birds 
and certain large insects which attack other butterflies ; he suspects 
that this immunity is owing to a peculiar and offensive odour that 
they emit. The mocking forms, on the other hand, which inhabit 
the same district, are comparatively rare, and belong to rare groups; 
hence they must suffer habitually from some danger, for from the 
number of eggs laid by all butterflies, without doubt they would, if 
not persecuted, in three or four generations swarm over the whole 
country. Now if a member of one of these persecuted and rare 
groups were to assume a dress so like that of a well-protected species 
that it continually deceived the practised eyes of an ardent ento¬ 
mologist, it would often deceive predacious birds and insects, and 
thus escape entire annihilation. This we fully believe is the true 
explanation of all this mockery. 
Mr. Bates truly observes, that the cases of one butterfly mocking 
another living butterfly do not essentially differ from the innumerable 
instances of insects imitating the bark of trees, lichens, sticks, and 
green leaves. Even with mammals, the hare on her form can hardly 
be distinguished from the surrounding withered herbage. But no case 
is known of a deer or antelope so like a tiger as to deceive a 
hunter; yet we hear from Mr. Bates of insects more dissimilar than 
a ruminant and carnivore, namely, of a cricket most closely resembling 
a cicindela —a veritable tiger amongst insects. Amongst birds, all 
that habitually squat on the ground in open and unprotected districts, 
resemble the ground, and never have gaudy plumage. It appears, 
however, that two cases of birds mocking other birds have been 
observed by that philosophical naturalist, Mr. Wallace. Amongst 
insects, on the other hand, in all parts of the world, there are innum¬ 
erable cases of imitation; Mr. Waterhouse has noted an excellent 
instance (and we have seen the specimens) of a rare beetle inhabiting 
the Philippine Archipelago, which most closely imitates a very com¬ 
mon kind belonging to a quite distinct group. The much greater 
frequency of mockery with insects than with other animals, is pro¬ 
bably the consequence of their small size; insects cannot defend 
themselves, excepting indeed the kinds that sting, and we have never 
heard of an instance of these mocking other insects, though they are 
mocked: insects cannot escape by flight from the larger animals ; 
hence they are reduced, like most weak creatures, to trickery and 
dissimulation. 
