| → travel a hundred miles, more or less, 1866 |
| if we proceed 1869 1872 |
|
| → and a distinct mocker 1866 |
| another mocking 1869 1872 |
|
| → OMIT 1866 |
| species belonging to the same genera, 1869 |
| species belonging to the same two genera, 1872 |
|
| → species of 1866 |
| butterfly belonging to 1869 1872 |
|
|
they are found to be
different in essential structure, and to belong not only to distinct genera, but often to distinct families.
this mimicry
in only one or two instances, it might have been passed over as a strange coincidence.
→travel a hundred miles, more or less,
from a district where one Leptalis imitates
Ithomia,
→and a distinct mocker
and
→OMIT
equally close in their resemblance,
be found. 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 imitator living remote from the form which it
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 same
so that in the same place, species of three genera of butterflies and even
found all closely resembling a
→species of
a fourth genus. It deserves especial notice that many of the mimicking forms of the Leptalis, as well as of the mimicked forms, can be shown by a graduated series to be merely varieties of the same species; whilst others are undoubtedly distinct species. But why, it may be asked, are certain forms treated as the mimicked and others as the mimickers? 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. |
|
| We are next led to inquire what reason can
be assigned for certain butterflies and moths so often assuming the dress of
and quite distinct
why, to the perplexity of naturalists, has nature
|
