



Produced by Chris Curnow, Keith Edkins and the Online
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Transcriber's note: The conventional male and female symbols are rendered
as [M] and [F] in this edition. In the discussion of _Papilio polytes_
the male symbol [M] must be distinguished carefully from the unbracketted
M denoting the male-like variety of females.

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  CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
  C. F. CLAY, MANAGER
  LONDON: FETTER LANE, E.C.
  EDINBURGH: 100 PRINCES STREET

[Illustration]

  NEW YORK: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
  BOMBAY, CALCUTTA AND MADRAS: MACMILLAN AND CO.
  TOKYO: THE MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA



_All rights reserved_



MIMICRY IN BUTTERFLIES



BY

REGINALD CRUNDALL PUNNETT, F.R.S.

  Fellow of Gonville and Caius College.
  Arthur Balfour Professor of Genetics in the University of Cambridge



  Cambridge:
  at the University Press
  1915

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PREFACE

This little book has been written in the hope that it may appeal to several
classes of readers.

Not infrequently I have been asked by friends of different callings in life
to recommend them some book on mimicry which shall be reasonably short,
well illustrated without being very costly, and not too hard to understand.
I have always been obliged to tell them that I know of nothing in our
language answering to this description, and it is largely as an attempt to
remedy this deficiency that the present little volume has been written.

I hope also that it will be found of interest to those who live in or visit
tropical lands, and are attracted by the beauty of the butterfly life
around them. There are few such countries without some of these cases of
close resemblance between butterflies belonging to different families and
groups, and it is to those who have the opportunity to be among them that
we must look for fuller light upon one of the most fascinating of all
nature's problems. If this little book serves to smooth the path of some
who would become acquainted with that problem, and desire to use their
opportunities of observation, the work that has gone to its making will
have been well repaid.

To those who cultivate biological thought from the more philosophical point
of view, I venture to hope that what I have written may not be without
appeal. At such a time as the present, big with impending changes in the
social fabric, few things are more vital than a clear conception of the
scope and workings of natural selection. Little enough is our certain
knowledge of these things, and small though the butterfly's contribution
may be I trust that it will not pass altogether unregarded.

In conclusion I wish to offer my sincere thanks to those who have helped me
in different ways. More especially are they due to my friends Dr Karl
Jordan for the loan of some valuable specimens, and to Mr T. H. Riches for
his kindly criticism on reading over the proof-sheets.

R. C. P.

  _February, 1915_

CONTENTS

  CHAP.                                                 PAGE
     I. INTRODUCTORY                                       1
    II. MIMICRY--BATESIAN AND MUeLLERIAN                    8
   III. OLD-WORLD MIMICS                                  18
    IV. NEW-WORLD MIMICS                                  37
     V. SOME CRITICISMS                                   50
    VI. "MIMICRY RINGS"                                   61
   VII. THE CASE OF _Papilio polytes_                     75
  VIII. THE CASE OF _Papilio polytes_ (_cont._)           93
    IX. THE ENEMIES OF BUTTERFLIES                       104
     X. MIMICRY AND VARIATION                            125
    XI. CONCLUSION                                       139
        APPENDIX I                                       154
        APPENDIX II                                      157
        PLATES I-XVI AND DESCRIPTIONS                    160 ff
          I-V.  ORIENTAL MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES.
         VI-IX. AFRICAN BUTTERFLIES.
        X-XIII. SOUTH AMERICAN BUTTERFLIES.
          XIV.  SCALES OF LEPIDOPTERA.
          XV.   CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICAN BUTTERFLIES.
          XVI.  NORTH AMERICAN BUTTERFLIES.
        INDEX                                            183

    "The process by which a mimetic analogy is brought about in nature is a
    problem which involves that of the origin of all species and all
    adaptations."--H. W. BATES, 1861.

    "With mimesis, above all, it is wise, when the law says that a thing is
    black, first to inquire whether it does not happen to be white."--HENRI
    FABRE.

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{1}

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

It is now more than fifty years since Darwin gave the theory of natural
selection to the world, and the conception of a gradual evolution has long
ago become part of the currency of thought. Evolution for Darwin was
brought about by more than one factor. He believed in the inherited effects
of the use and disuse of parts, and he also regarded sexual selection as
operating at any rate among the higher animals. Yet he looked upon the
natural selection of small favourable variations as the principal factor in
evolutionary change. Since Darwin's time the trend has been to magnify
natural selection at the expense of the other two factors. The doctrine of
the inherited effects of use and disuse, vigorously challenged by Weismann,
failed to make good its case