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An objection derived from cases like male fish, which seem to require protection, yet having brighter colours, seems to me of no more weight than is that of the existence of many white and unprotected species of Leptalis to Bates's theory of mimicry, that only one or two species of butterflies perfectly resemble leaves, or that the instincts or habits or colours that seem essential to the preservation of one animal are often totally absent in an allied species.
In the same district in which a species of Leptalis closely imitates an Ithomia, there are sometimes other Lepidoptera mimicking the same Ithomia: so that in the same place, species of three genera of butterflies and even a moth are found all closely resembling a butterfly belonging to a fourth genus.
Bates may almost be said to have actually witnessed the process by which the mimickers have come so closely to resemble the mimicked; for he found that some of the forms of Leptalis which mimic so many other butterflies, varied in an extreme degree. In one district several varieties occurred, and of these one alone resembled, to a certain extent, the common Ithomia of the same district.
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; while 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 concludes that the Leptalis first varies; and when a variety happens to resemble in some degree any common butterfly inhabiting the same district, this variety, from its resemblance to a flourishing and little persecuted kind, has a better chance of escaping destruction from predaceous birds and insects, and is consequently oftener preserved; "the less perfect degrees of resemblance being generation after generation eliminated, and only the others left to propagate their kind."
The fact that in almost all protected groups the females perfectly resemble the males shows, I think, a tendency to transference of colour from one sex to the other when this tendency is not injurious. Or perhaps the protection is acquired because this tendency exists. Now for the special case. In the very weak-flying Leptalis both sexes mimic Heliconidæ.
This excellent observer has shown that in some districts of South America, where, for instance, an Ithomia abounds in gaudy swarms, another butterfly, namely, a Leptalis, is often found mingled in the same flock; and the latter so closely resembles the Ithomia in every shade and stripe of colour, and even in the shape of its wings, that Mr.
Had this mimicry occurred in only one or two instances, it might have been passed over as a strange coincidence. But, if we proceed from a district where one Leptalis imitates an Ithomia, another mocking and mocked species, belonging to the same two genera, equally close in their resemblance, may be found.
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