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closely mimicking other kinds. This excellent observer
that in
→where,
for instance, an Ithomia abounds in gaudy swarms, another butterfly, namely, a Leptalis,
often
mingled in the same
→so
the Ithomia in every 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 his guard, continually deceived. When the mockers and the mocked are caught and
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.
→if we proceed
from a district where one Leptalis imitates
Ithomia,
→another mocking
and
→species belonging to the same genera,
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
→butterfly belonging to
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
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