[17]

American Nat. Aug. p. 377. Cope says he first published on mimetic resemblance of snakes. wh. - Wallace gives.

[Mimetic Analogy.— At a recent meeting of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Prof. Cope described a new genus and species of snake, from the Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, which was interesting in several respects. It was called Nothopsis rugosus, and was said to be in structural characters near to the family of Achiochordidæ, but apparently nearest the genus Xenodermus Reinhdt., all which forms are natives of the East Indian Archipelago.

The description indicated how closely this serpent resembled in coloration the young examples of Trigonocephalus atrox from the same country, and the Trigonocephalus Newidii of Brazil. This is so marked as to constitute a case of mimetic analogy. But few cases of mimicry of the Crotaline venomous snakes are to be observed in South America, the imitations being chiefly of the other venomous group of Proteroghypha as represented by Elaps.

In this connection was made a reclamation of the discovery of this, perhaps the most extensive example of mimetic analogy known in Zoology. Alfred R. Wallace, in his admirable work "Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection," London, 1870, gives Dr. Günther as his authority for the facts of the case with regard to the genera Plicocerus, Oxyrrhopus, Erythrolamphrus, etc., and refers to his own previously published account of it in one of the British reviews for 1867. Wallace is quoted by Darwin in his "Descent of Man," to the same effect. The first published account of the case will be found in the "Proceedings of the Acad. Nat. Sci., of Phila.," 1865, p. 190, in a paper by the author. It was repeated and extended in 'Origin of Genera," 1868, but had been already pointed out in conversation with Dr. Wallace and probably Dr. Günther also, when in London in 1863, a fact which had probably escaped his memory.]