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I observed a pair of birds that were bringing butterflies and dragon-flies to their young, and although the Heliconii swarmed in the neighbourhood and are of weak flight so as to be easily caught, the birds never brought one to their nest. I had a still better means of testing both these and other insects that are mimicked in Nicaragua.

Another spider that frequented flowers seemed to be fond of them, and I have already mentioned a wasp that caught them to store its nest with. Amongst the beetles there is a family that is just as much mimicked as the Heliconii are amongst the butterflies. These are the Lampyridae, to which the fireflies belong.

The tame white-faced monkey I have already mentioned was extremely fond of insects, and would greedily munch up beetle or butterfly given to him, and I used to bring to him any insects that I found imitated by others to see whether they were distasteful or not. I found he would never eat the Heliconii.

There is no attempt at concealment, but, on the contrary, they appear to endeavour to make their presence known. The long narrow wings of the Heliconii butterflies, banded with black, yellow, and red, distinguish them from all others, excepting the mimetic species. The banded bodies of many wasps, or the rich metallic colours of others, and their constant jerky motions, make them very conspicuous.

In the broad alleys of the forest a magnificent butterfly of the genus Morpho, six to eight inches in expanse, the Morpho Hecuba, was seen daily gliding along at a height of twenty feet or more from the ground. Amongst the lower trees and bushes numerouskinds of Heliconii, a group of butterflies peculiar to tropical America, having long narrow wings, were very abundant.

For instance, the Heliconii and Morphos are a group of butterflies peculiar to tropical America, containing many distinct genera which, on any theory of descent from a common progenitor, must have originated ages before the glacial period.

Thus I had an opportunity of proving in Brazil that some birds, if not all, reject the Heliconii butterflies, which are closely resembled by butterflies of other families and by moths.