Packard.] 
INSECTS AS MIMICS. 
281 
Mimicry of other Insects .—We now come to instances 
where insects resemble others of different genera, families 
and orders. They are exceedingly numerous, and entomolo¬ 
gists have been familiar with some of them for at least a 
century. Struck with the fact that as a rule the insects 
which were mimicked were higher in the scale than the mim- 
ickers, the writer attempted in an essay published in 1863* 
to classify some of the known facts, adding some supposed 
to be new, and to give a partial explanation of them. In the 
light of the facts published a year previous to this by Mr. 
Bates,f and afterwards by Mr. Wallace:): and Mr. Darwin,§ 
I am inclined to the belief that the resemblance in pattern 
and color between insects belonging to different groups is 
probably due to causes more fundamental than natural and 
sexual selection, and reaching possibly farther back in geo¬ 
logical time. I will quote the following passage from my 
essay : 
“ If we consider the Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera and Dip- 
tera by themselves, in the order in which Latreille has placed 
them, we shall find these three groups full of reciprocal anal¬ 
ogies. Certain forms in the one suborder leap over their 
neighboring suborder to find their analogues in one a third 
removed ; or again, we see analogous forms between the two 
higher groups, leaving the lowest for a while isolated ; or on 
the other hand the two lower groups are thus united, leaving 
the highest one standing by itself. For example, the clear¬ 
winged Sesia imitates the humble-bee in its form and flight; 
the 'different species of Algerians (Fig. 219, JEgerict tipuli - 
*On Synthetic Types in Insects. Journal of the Boston Society of Natural 
History. 18U3. 
tH. W. Bates. Contributions to the Insect Fauna of the Amazon Valley. 
Lepidoptera: HeliconidaJ. Transactions of the Linntean Society, vol. 23,18G2. 
1A R. Wallace. Mimicry, and other Protective Resemblances among Ani* 
mals. Westminster Review, July, 1SG7. Reprinted in “Contributions to the 
Theory of Natural Selection.” 1870. 
§ Charles Darwin. The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, 
1871. 
25 
