Evolution in Modern Thought Part 4

Among many animals, however, the females at first withdraw from the males; they are coy, and have to be sought out, and sometimes held by force. This tracking and grasping of the females by the males has given rise to many different characters in the latter, as, for instance, the larger eyes of the male bee, and especially of the males of the Ephemerids (May-flies), some species of which show, in addition to the usual compound eyes, large, so-called turban-eyes, so that the whole head is covered with seeing surfaces. In these species the females are very greatly in the minority (1-100), and it is easy to understand that a keen compet.i.tion for them must take place, and that, when the insects of both s.e.xes are floating freely in the air, an unusually wide range of vision will carry with it a decided advantage. Here again the actual adaptations are in accordance with the preliminary postulates of the theory. We do not know the stages through which the eye has pa.s.sed to its present perfected state, but, since the number of simple eyes (facets) has become very much greater in the male than in the female, we may a.s.sume that their increase is due to a gradual duplication of the determinants of the ommatidium in the germ-plasm, as I have already indicated in regard to sense-organs in general. In this case, again, the selection-value of the initial stages hardly admits of doubt; better vision _directly_ secures reproduction.

In many cases _the organ of smell_ shows a similar improvement. Many lower Crustaceans (Daphnidae) have better developed organs of smell in the male s.e.x. The difference is often slight and amounts only to one or two olfactory filaments, but certain species show a difference of nearly a hundred of these filaments (Leptodora). The same thing occurs among insects.

We must briefly consider the clasping or grasping organs which have developed in the males among many lower Crustaceans, but here natural selection plays its part along with s.e.xual selection, for the union of the s.e.xes is an indispensable condition for the maintenance of the species, and as Darwin himself pointed out, in many cases the two forms of selection merge into each other. This fact has always seemed to me to be a proof of natural selection, for, in regard to s.e.xual selection, it is quite obvious that the victory of the best-equipped could have brought about the improvement only of the organs concerned, the factors in the struggle, such as the eye and the olfactory organ.

We come now to the _excitants_; that is, to the group of s.e.xual characters whose origin through processes of selection has been most frequently called in question. We may cite the _love-calls_ produced by many male insects, such as crickets and cicadas. These could only have arisen in animal groups in which the female did not rapidly flee from the male, but was inclined to accept his wooing from the first.

Thus, notes like the chirping of the male cricket serve to entice the females. At first they were merely the signal which showed the presence of a male in the neighbourhood, and the female was gradually enticed nearer and nearer by the continued chirping. The male that could make himself heard to the greatest distance would obtain the largest following, and would transmit the beginnings, and, later, the improvement of his voice to the greatest number of descendants. But s.e.xual excitement in the female became a.s.sociated with the hearing of the love-call, and then the sound-producing organ of the male began to improve, until it attained to the emission of the long-drawn-out soft notes of the mole-cricket or the maenad-like cry of the cicadas. I cannot here follow the process of development in detail, but will call attention to the fact that the original purpose of the voice, the announcing of the male's presence, became subsidiary, and the exciting of the female became the chief goal to be aimed at. The loudest singers awakened the strongest excitement, and the improvement resulted as a matter of course. I conceive of the origin of bird-song in a somewhat similar manner, first as a means of enticing, then of exciting the female.

One more kind of secondary s.e.xual character must here be mentioned: the odour which emanates from so many animals at the breeding season.

It is possible that this odour also served at first merely to give notice of the presence of individuals of the other s.e.x, but it soon became an excitant, and as the individuals which caused the greatest degree of excitement were preferred, it reached as high a pitch of perfection as was possible to it. I shall confine myself here to the comparatively recently discovered fragrance of b.u.t.terflies. Since Fritz Muller found out that certain Brazilian b.u.t.terflies gave off fragrance "like a flower," we have become acquainted with many such cases, and we now know that in all lands, not only many diurnal Lepidoptera but nocturnal ones also give off a delicate odour, which is agreeable even to man. The ethereal oil to which this fragrance is due is secreted by the skin-cells, usually of the wing, as I showed soon after the discovery of the _scent-scales_. This is the case in the males; the females have no _special_ scent-scales recognisable as such by their form, but they must, nevertheless, give off an extremely delicate fragrance, although our imperfect organ of smell cannot perceive it, for the males become aware of the presence of a female, even at night, from a long distance off, and gather round her. We may therefore conclude, that both s.e.xes have long given forth a very delicate perfume, which announced their presence to others of the same species, and that in many species (_not in all_) these small beginnings become, in the males, particularly strong scent-scales of characteristic form (lute, brush, or lyre-shaped). At first these scales were scattered over the surface of the wing, but gradually they concentrated themselves, and formed broad, velvety bands, or strong, prominent brushes, and they attained their highest pitch of evolution when they became enclosed within pits or folds of the skin, which could be opened to let the delicious fragrance stream forth suddenly towards the female. Thus in this case also we see that characters, the original use of which was to bring the s.e.xes together, and so to maintain the species, have been evolved in the males into means for exciting the female. And we can hardly doubt, that the females are most readily enticed to yield to the b.u.t.terfly that sends out the strongest fragrance,--that is to say, that excites them to the highest degree. It is a pity that our organs of smell are not fine enough to examine the fragrance of male Lepidoptera in general, and to compare it with other perfumes which attract these insects.[43] As far as we can perceive them they resemble the fragrance of flowers, but there are Lepidoptera whose scent suggests musk. A smell of musk is also given off by several plants: it is a s.e.xual excitant in the musk-deer, the musk-sheep, and the crocodile.

As far as we know, then, it is perfumes similar to those of flowers that the male Lepidoptera give off in order to entice their mates and this is a further indication that animals, like plants, can to a large extent meet the claims made upon them by life, and produce the adaptations which are most purposive,--a further proof, too, of my proposition that the useful variations, so to speak, are _always there_. The flowers developed the perfumes which entice their visitors, and the male Lepidoptera developed the perfumes which entice and excite their mates.

There are many pretty little problems to be solved in this connection, for there are insects, such as some flies, that are attracted by smells which are unpleasant to us, like those from decaying flesh and carrion. But there are also certain flowers, some orchids for instance, which give forth no very agreeable odour, but one which is to us repulsive and disgusting; and we should therefore expect that the males of such insects would give off a smell unpleasant to us, but there is no case known to me in which this has been demonstrated.

In cases such as we have discussed, it is obvious that there is no possible explanation except through selection. This brings us to the last kind of secondary s.e.xual characters, and the one in regard to which doubt has been most frequently expressed,--decorative colours and decorative forms, the brilliant plumage of the male pheasant, the humming-birds, and the bird of Paradise, as well as the bright colours of many species of b.u.t.terfly, from the beautiful blue of our little Lycaenidae to the magnificent azure of the large Morphinae of Brazil.

In a great many cases, though not by any means in all, the male b.u.t.terflies are "more beautiful" than the females, and in the Tropics in particular they shine and glow in the most superb colours. I really see no reason why we should doubt the power of s.e.xual selection, and I myself stand wholly on Darwin's side. Even though we certainly cannot a.s.sume that the females exercise a conscious choice of the "handsomest" mate, and deliberate like the judges in a court of justice over the perfections of their wooers, we have no reason to doubt that distinctive forms (decorative feathers), and colours have a particularly exciting effect upon the female, just as certain odours have among animals of so many different groups, including the b.u.t.terflies. The doubts which existed for a considerable time, as a result of fallacious experiments, as to whether the colours of flowers really had any influence in attracting b.u.t.terflies have now been set at rest through a series of more careful investigations; we now know that the colours of flowers are there on account of the b.u.t.terflies, as Sprengel first showed, and that the blossoms of Phanerogams are selected in relation to them, as Darwin pointed out.

Certainly it is not possible to bring forward any convincing proof of the origin of decorative colours through s.e.xual selection, but there are many weighty arguments in favour of it, and these form a body of presumptive evidence so strong that it almost amounts to certainty.

In the first place, there is the a.n.a.logy with other secondary s.e.xual characters. If the song of birds and the chirping of the cricket have been evolved through s.e.xual selection, if the penetrating odours of male animals,--the crocodile, the musk-deer, the beaver, the carnivores, and, finally, the flower-like fragrances of the b.u.t.terflies have been evolved to their present pitch in this way, why should decorative colours have arisen in some other way? Why should the eye be less sensitive to _specifically male_ colours and other _visible_ signs _enticing to the female_, than the olfactory sense to specifically male odours, or the sense of hearing to specifically male sounds? Moreover, the decorative feathers of birds are almost always spread out and displayed before the female during courtship. I have elsewhere[44] pointed out that decorative colouring and sweet-scentedness may replace one another in Lepidoptera as well as in flowers, for just as some modestly coloured flowers (mignonette and violet) have often a strong perfume, while strikingly coloured ones are sometimes quite devoid of fragrance, so we find that the most beautiful and gaily-coloured of our native Lepidoptera, the species of Vanessa, have no scent-scales, while these are often markedly developed in grey nocturnal Lepidoptera. Both attractions may, however, be combined in b.u.t.terflies, just as in flowers. Of course, we cannot explain why both means of attraction should exist in one genus, and only one of them in another, since we do not know the minutest details of the conditions of life of the genera concerned. But from the sporadic distribution of scent-scales in Lepidoptera, and from their occurrence or absence in nearly related species, we may conclude that fragrance is a relatively _modern_ acquirement, more recent than brilliant colouring.

One thing in particular that stamps decorative colouring as a product of selection is _its gradual intensification_ by the addition of new spots, which we can quite well observe, because in many cases the colours have been first acquired by the males, and later transmitted to the females by inheritance. The scent-scales are never thus transmitted, probably for the same reason that the decorative colours of many birds are often not transmitted to the females: because with these they would be exposed to too great elimination by enemies.

Wallace was the first to point out that in species with concealed nests the beautiful feathers of the male occurred in the female also, as in the parrots, for instance, but this is not the case in species which brood on an exposed nest. In the parrots one can often observe that the general brilliant colouring of the male is found in the female, but that certain spots of colour are absent, and these have probably been acquired comparatively recently by the male and have not yet been transmitted to the female.

Isolation of the group of individuals which is in process of varying is undoubtedly of great value in s.e.xual selection, for even a solitary conspicuous variation will become dominant much sooner in a small isolated colony, than among a large number of members of a species.

Any one who agrees with me in deriving variations from germinal selection will regard that process as an essential aid towards explaining the selection of distinctive courtship-characters, such as coloured spots, decorative feathers, h.o.r.n.y outgrowths in birds and reptiles, combs, feather-tufts, and the like, since the beginnings of these would be presented with relative frequency in the struggle between the determinants within the germ-plasm. The process of transmission of decorative feathers to the female results, as Darwin pointed out and ill.u.s.trated by interesting examples, in the _colour-transformation of a whole species_, and this process, as the phyletically older colouring of young birds shows, must, in the course of thousands of years, have repeated itself several times in a line of descent.

If we survey the wealth of phenomena presented to us by secondary s.e.xual characters, we can hardly fail to be convinced of the truth of the principle of s.e.xual selection. And certainly no one who has accepted natural selection should reject s.e.xual selection, for, not only do the two processes rest upon the same basis, but they merge into one another, so that it is often impossible to say how much of a particular character depends on one and how much on the other form of selection.

(_b_) _Natural Selection_

An actual proof of the theory of s.e.xual selection is out of the question, if only because we cannot tell when a variation attains to selection-value. It is certain that a delicate sense of smell is of value to the male moth in his search for the female, but whether the possession of one additional olfactory hair, or of ten, or of twenty additional hairs leads to the success of its possessor we are unable to tell. And we are groping even more in the dark when we discuss the excitement caused in the female by agreeable perfumes, or by striking and beautiful colours. That these do make an impression is beyond doubt; but we can only a.s.sume that slight intensifications of them give any advantage, and we _must_ a.s.sume this _since otherwise secondary s.e.xual characters remain inexplicable_.

The same thing is true in regard to natural selection. It is not possible to bring forward any actual proof of the selection-value of the initial stages, and the stages in the increase of variations, as has been already shown. But the selection-value of a finished adaptation can in many cases be statistically determined. Cesnola and Poulton have made valuable experiments in this direction. The former attached forty-five individuals of the green, and sixty-five of the brown variety of the praying mantis (_Mantis religiosa_), by a silk thread to plants, and watched them for seven days. The insects which were on a surface of a colour Similar to their own remained uneaten, while twenty-five green insects on brown parts of plants had all disappeared in eleven days.

The experiments of Poulton and Sanders[45] were made with 600 pupae of _Vanessa urticae_, the "tortoise-sh.e.l.l b.u.t.terfly." The pupae were artificially attached to nettles, tree-trunks, fences, walls, and to the ground, some at Oxford, some at St. Helens in the Isle of Wight.

In the course of a month 93% of the pupae at Oxford were killed, chiefly by small birds, while at St. Helens 68% perished. The experiments showed very clearly that the colour and character of the surface on which the pupa rests--and thus its own conspicuousness--are of the greatest importance. At Oxford only the four pupae which were fastened to nettles emerged; all the rest--on bark, stones and the like--perished. At St. Helens the elimination was as follows: on fences where the pupae were conspicuous, 92%; on bark, 66%; on walls, 54%; and among nettles, 57%. These interesting experiments confirm our views as to protective coloration, and show further, _that the ratio of elimination in the species is a very high one, and that therefore selection must be very keen_.

We may say that the process of selection follows as a logical necessity from the fulfilment of the three preliminary postulates of the theory: variability, heredity, and the struggle for existence, with its enormous ratio of elimination in all species. To this we must add a fourth factor, the _intensification_ of variations which Darwin established as a fact, and which we are now able to account for theoretically on the basis of germinal selection. It may be objected that there is considerable uncertainty about this _logical_ proof, because of our inability to demonstrate the selection-value of the initial stages and the individual stages of increase. We have therefore to fall back on _presumptive evidence_. This is to be found in _the interpretative value of the theory_. Let us consider this point in greater detail.

In the first place it is necessary to emphasize what is often overlooked, namely, that the theory not only explains the _transformations_ of species, it also explains _their remaining the same_; in addition to the principle of varying, it contains within itself that of _persisting_. It is part of the essence of selection, that it not only causes a part to _vary_ till it has reached its highest pitch of adaptation, but that it _maintains it at this pitch.

This conserving influence of natural selection_ is of great importance, and was early recognised by Darwin; it follows naturally from the principle of the survival of the fittest.

We understand from this how it is that a species which has become fully adapted to certain conditions of life ceases to vary, but remains "constant," as long as the conditions of life _for_ it remain unchanged, whether this be for thousands of years, or for whole geological epochs. But the most convincing proof of the power of the principle of selection lies in the innumerable mult.i.tude of phenomena which cannot be explained in any other way. To this category belong all structures which are only _pa.s.sively_ of advantage to the organism, because none of these can have arisen by the alleged _Lamarckian principle_. These have been so often discussed that we need do no more than indicate them here. Until quite recently the sympathetic coloration of animals--for instance, the whiteness of Arctic animals--was referred, at least in part, to the _direct_ influence of external factors, but the facts can best be explained by referring them to the processes of selection, for then it is unnecessary to make the gratuitous a.s.sumption that many species are sensitive to the stimulus of cold and that others are not. The great majority of Arctic land-animals, mammals and birds, are white, and this proves that they were all able to present the variation which was most useful for them. The sable is brown, but it lives in trees, where the brown colouring protects and conceals it more effectively. The musk-sheep (_Ovibos moschatus_) is also brown, and contrasts sharply with the ice and snow, but it is protected from beasts of prey by its gregarious habit, and therefore it is of advantage to be visible from as great a distance as possible. That so many species have been able to give rise to white varieties does not depend on a special sensitiveness of the skin to the influence of cold, but to the fact that Mammals and Birds have a general tendency to vary towards white.

Even with us, many birds--starlings, blackbirds, swallows, etc.--occasionally produce white individuals, but the white variety does not persist, because it readily falls a victim to the carnivores.

This is true of white fawns, foxes, deer, etc. The whiteness, therefore, arises from internal causes, and only persists when it is useful. A great many animals living in a _green environment_ have become clothed in green, especially insects, caterpillars, and Mantidae, both persecuted and persecutors.

That it is not the direct effect of the environment which calls forth the green colour is shown by the many kinds of caterpillar which rest on leaves and feed on them, but are nevertheless brown. These feed by night and betake themselves through the day to the trunk of the tree, and hide in the furrows of the bark. We cannot, however, conclude from this that they were _unable_ to vary towards green, for there are Arctic animals which are white only in winter and brown in summer (Alpine hare, and the ptarmigan of the Alps), and there are also green leaf-insects which remain green only while they are young and difficult to see on the leaf, but which become brown again in the last stage of larval life, when they have outgrown the leaf. They then conceal themselves by day, sometimes only among withered leaves on the ground, sometimes in the earth itself. It is interesting that in one genus, Chaerocampa, one species is brown in the last stage of larval life, another becomes brown earlier, and in many species the last stage is not wholly brown, a part remaining green. Whether this is a case of a double adaptation, or whether the green is being gradually crowded out by the brown, the fact remains that the same species, even the same individual, can exhibit both variations. The case is the same with many of the leaf-like Orthoptera, as, for instance, the praying mantis (_Mantis religiosa_) which we have already mentioned.

But the best proofs are furnished by those of ten-cited cases in which the insect bears a deceptive resemblance to another object. We now know many such cases, such as the numerous imitations of green or withered leaves, which are brought about in the most diverse ways, sometimes by mere variations in the form of the insect and in its colour, sometimes by an elaborate marking, like that which occurs in the Indian leaf-b.u.t.terflies, _Kallima inachis_. In the single b.u.t.terfly-genus Anaea, in the woods of South America, there are about a hundred species which are all gaily coloured on the upper surface, and on the reverse side exhibit the most delicate imitation of the colouring and pattern of a leaf, generally without any indication of the leaf-ribs, but extremely deceptive nevertheless. Anyone who has seen only one such b.u.t.terfly may doubt whether many of the insignificant details of the marking can really be of advantage to the insect. Such details are for instance the apparent holes and splits in the apparently dry or half-rotten leaf, which are usually due to the fact that the scales are absent on a circular or oval patch so that the colourless wing-membrane lies bare, and one can look through the spot as through a window. Whether the bird which is seeking or pursuing the b.u.t.terflies takes these holes for dewdrops, or for the work of a devouring insect, does not affect the question; the mirror-like spot undoubtedly increases the general deceptiveness, for the same thing occurs in many leaf-b.u.t.terflies, though not in all, and in some cases it is replaced in quite a peculiar manner. In one species of Anaea (_A. divina_), the resting b.u.t.terfly looks exactly like a leaf out of the outer edge of which a large semi-circular piece has been eaten, possibly by a caterpillar; but if we look more closely it is obvious that there is no part of the wing absent, and that the semi-circular piece is of a clear, pale yellow colour, while the rest of the wing is of a strongly contrasted dark brown.

But the deceptive resemblance may be caused in quite a different manner. I have often speculated as to what advantage the brilliant white C could give to the otherwise dusky-coloured "Comma b.u.t.terfly"

(_Grapta C. alb.u.m_). Poulton's recent observations[46] have shown that this represents the imitation of a crack such as is often seen in dry leaves, and is very conspicuous because the light shines through it.

The utility obviously lies in presenting to the bird the very familiar picture of a broken leaf with a clear shining slit, and we may conclude, from the imitation of such small details, that the birds are very sharp observers and that the smallest deviation from the usual arrests their attention and incites them to closer investigation. It is obvious that such detailed--we might almost say such subtle--deceptive resemblances could only have come about in the course of long ages through the acquirement from time to time of something new which heightened the already existing resemblance.

In face of facts like these there can be no question of chance and no one has succeeded so far in finding any other explanation to replace that by selection. For the rest, the apparent leaves are by no means perfect copies of a leaf; many of them only represent the torn or broken piece, or the half or two-thirds of a leaf, but then the leaves themselves frequently do not present themselves to the eye as a whole, but partially concealed among other leaves. Even those b.u.t.terflies which, like the species of Kallima and Anaea, represent the whole of a leaf with stalk, ribs, apex, and the whole breadth, are not actual copies which would satisfy a botanist; there is often much wanting. In Kallima the lateral ribs of the leaf are never all included in the markings; there are only two or three on the left side and at more four or five on the right, and in many individuals these are rather obscure, while in others they are comparatively distinct. This furnishes us with fresh evidence in favour of their origin through processes of selection, for a botanically perfect picture could not arise in this way; there could only be a fixing of such details as heightened the deceptive resemblance.

Our postulate of origin through selection also enables us to understand why the leaf-imitation is on the lower surface of the wing in the diurnal Lepidoptera, and on the upper surface in the nocturnal forms, corresponding to the att.i.tude of the wings in the resting position of the two groups.

The strongest of all proofs of the theory, however, is afforded by cases of true "mimicry," those adaptations discovered by Bates in 1861, consisting in the imitation of one species by another, which becomes more and more like its model. The model is always a species that enjoys some special protection from enemies, whether because it is unpleasant to taste, or because it is in some way dangerous.

It is chiefly among insects and especially among b.u.t.terflies that we find the greatest number of such cases. Several of these have been minutely studied and every detail has been investigated so that it is difficult to understand how there can still be disbelief in regard to them. If the many and exact observations which have been carefully collected and critically discussed for instance by Poulton[47] were thoroughly studied the arguments which are still frequently urged against mimicry would be found untenable; we can hardly hope to find more convincing proof of the actuality of the processes of selection than these cases put into our hands. The preliminary postulates of the theory of mimicry have been disputed, for instance, that diurnal b.u.t.terflies are persecuted and eaten by birds, but observations specially directed towards this point in India, Africa, America and Europe have placed it beyond all doubt. If it were necessary I could myself furnish an account of my own observations on this point.

In the same way it has been established by experiment and observation in the field that in all the great regions of distribution there are b.u.t.terflies which are rejected by birds and lizards, their chief enemies, on account of their unpleasant smell or taste. These b.u.t.terflies are usually gaily and conspicuously coloured and thus--as Wallace first interpreted it--are furnished with an easily recognisable sign: a sign of unpalatableness or _warning colours_. If they were not thus recognisable easily and from a distance, they would frequently be pecked at by birds, and then rejected because of their unpleasant taste; but as it is, the insect-eaters recognise them at once as unpalatable booty and ignore them. Such _immune_[48] species, wherever they occur, are imitated by other palatable species, which thus acquire a certain degree of protection.

It is true that this explanation of the bright, conspicuous colours is only a hypothesis, but its foundations--unpalatableness, and the liability of other b.u.t.terflies to be eaten,--are certain, and its consequences--the existence of mimetic palatable forms--conform it in the most convincing manner. Of the many cases now known I select one, which is especially remarkable, and which has been thoroughly investigated, _Papilla darda.n.u.s_ (_merope_), a large, beautiful, diurnal b.u.t.terfly which ranges from Abyssinia throughout the whole of Africa to the south coast of Cape Colony.

The males of this form are everywhere _almost_ the same in colour and in form of wings, save for a few variations in the spa.r.s.e black markings on the pale yellow ground. But the females occur in several quite different forms and colourings, and one of these only, the Abyssinian form, is like the male, while the other three or four are _mimetic_, that is to say, they copy a b.u.t.terfly of quite a different family the Danaids, which are among the _immune_ forms. In each region the females have thus copied two or three different immune species.

There is much that is interesting to be said in regard to these species, but it would be out of keeping with the general tenor of this paper to give details of this very complicated case of polymorphism in _P. Darda.n.u.s_. Anyone who is interested in the matter will find a full and exact statement of the case in as far as we know it, in Poulton's _Essays on Evolution_ (pp. 373-375[49]). I need only add that three different mimetic female forms have been reared from the eggs of a single female in South Africa. The resemblance of the forms to their immune models goes so far that even the details of the _local_ forms of the models are copied by the mimetic species.

It remains to be said that in Madagascar a b.u.t.terfly,

_Papilio meriones_, occurs, of which both s.e.xes are very similar in form and markings to the non-mimetic male of _P. darda.n.u.s_, so that it probably represents the ancestor of this latter species.

In face of such facts as these every attempt at another explanation must fail. Similarly all the other details of the case fulfil the preliminary postulates of selection, and leave no room for any other interpretation. That the males do not take on the protective colouring is easily explained, because they are in general more numerous, and the females are more important for the preservation of the species, and must also live longer in order to deposit their eggs. We find the same state of things in many other species, and in one case (_Elymnias undularis_) in which the male is also mimetically coloured, it copies quite a differently coloured immune species from the model followed by the female. This is quite intelligible when we consider that if there were _too many_ false immune types, the birds would soon discover that there were palatable individuals among those with unpalatable warning colours. Hence the imitation of different immune species by _Papilio darda.n.u.s_!

I regret that lack of s.p.a.ce prevents my bringing forward more examples of mimicry and discussing them fully. But from the case of _Papilio darda.n.u.s_ alone there is much to be learnt which is of the highest importance for our understanding of transformations. It shows us chiefly what I once called, somewhat strongly perhaps, _the omnipotence of natural selection_ in answer to an opponent who had spoken of its "inadequacy." We here see that one and the same species is capable of producing four or five different patterns of colouring and marking; thus the colouring and marking are not, as has often been supposed, a necessary outcome of the specific nature of the species, but a true adaptation, which cannot arise as a direct effect of climatic conditions, but solely through what I may call the sorting out of the variations produced by the species, according to their utility. That caterpillars may be either green or brown is already something more than could have been expected according to the old conception of species, but that one and the same b.u.t.terfly should be now pale yellow, with black; now red with black and pure white; now deep black with large, pure white spots; and again black with a large ocheous-yellow spot, and many small white and yellow spots; that in one sub-species it may be tailed like the ancestral form, and in another tailless like its Danaid model,--all this shows a far-reaching capacity for variation and adaptation that we could never have expected if we did not see the facts before us. How it is possible that the primary colour-variations should thus be intensified and combined remains a puzzle even now; we are reminded of the modern three-colour printing,--perhaps similar combinations of the primary colours take place in this case; in any case the direction of these primary variations is determined by the artist whom we know as natural selection, for there is no other conceivable way in which the model could affect the b.u.t.terfly that is becoming more and more like it. The same climate surrounds all four forms of female; they are subject to the same conditions of nutrition. Moreover, _Papilio darda.n.u.s_ is by no means the only species of b.u.t.terfly which exhibits different kinds of colour-pattern on its wings. Many species of the Asiatic genus Elymnias have on the upper surface a very good imitation of an immune Euploeine (Danainae), often with a steel-blue ground-colour, while the under surface is well concealed when the b.u.t.terfly is at rest,--thus there are two kinds of protective coloration each with a different meaning! The same thing may be observed in many non-mimetic b.u.t.terflies, for instance in all our species of Vanessa, in which the under side shows a grey-brown or brownish-black protective coloration, but we do not yet know with certainty what may be the biological significance of the gaily coloured upper surface.

In general it may be said that mimetic b.u.t.terflies are comparatively rare species, but there are exceptions, for instance _Limenitis archippus_ in North America, of which the immune model (_Danaida plexippus_) also occurs in enormous numbers.

In another mimicry-category the imitators are often more numerous than the models, namely in the case of the imitation of _dangerous insects_ by harmless species. Bees and wasps are dreaded for their sting, and they are copied by harmless flies of the genera Eristalis and Syrphus, and these mimics often occur in swarms about flowering plants without damage to themselves or to their models; they are feared and are therefore left unmolested.

In regard also to the _faithfulness of the copy_ the facts are quite in harmony with the theory, according to which the resemblance must have arisen and increased _by degrees_. We can recognise this in many cases, for even now the mimetic species show very _varying degrees of resemblance_ to their immune model. If we compare, for instance, the many different imitators of _Danaida chrysippus_ we find that, with their brownish-yellow ground-colour, and the position and size, and more or less sharp limitation of their clear marginal spots, they have reached very different degrees of nearness to their model. Or compare the female of _Elymnias undularis_ with its model _Danaida genutia_; there is a general resemblance, but the marking of the Danaida is very roughly imitated in Elymnias.

Another fact that bears out the theory of mimicry is, that even when the resemblance in colour-pattern is very great, the _wing-venation_, which is so constant, and so important in determining the systematic position of b.u.t.terflies, is never affected by the variation. The pursuers of the b.u.t.terfly have no time to trouble about entomological intricacies.

I must not pa.s.s over a discovery of Poulton's which is of great theoretical importance--that mimetic b.u.t.terflies may reach the same effect by very different means.[50] Thus the gla.s.s-like transparency of the wing of a certain Ithomiine (Methona) and its Pierine mimic (_Dismorphia orise_) depends on a diminution in the size of the scales; in the Danaine genus Itune it is due to the fewness of the scales and in a third imitator, a moth (_Castnia linus var.

heliconoides_) the gla.s.s-like appearance of the wing is due neither to diminution nor to absence of scales, but to their absolute colourlessness and transparency, and to the fact that they stand upright. In another moth mimic (Anthomyza) the arrangement of the transparent scales is normal. Thus it is not some unknown external influence that has brought about the transparency of the wing in these five forms, as has sometimes been supposed. Nor is it a hypothetical _internal_ evolutionary tendency, for all three vary in a different manner. The cause of this agreement can only lie in selection, which preserves and intensifies in each species the favourable variations that present themselves. The great faithfulness of the copy is astonishing in these cases, for it is not _the whole_ wing which is transparent; certain markings are black in colour, and these contrast sharply with the gla.s.s-like ground. It is obvious that the pursuers of these b.u.t.terflies must be very sharp-sighted, for otherwise the agreement between the species could never have been pushed so far. The less the enemies see and observe, the more defective must the imitation be, and if they had been blind, no visible resemblance between the species which required protection could ever have arisen.

A seemingly irreconcilable contradiction to the mimicry theory is presented in the following cases, which were known to Bates, who, however, never succeeded in bringing them into line with the principle of mimicry.

In South America there are, as we have already said, many mimics of the immune Ithomiinae (or as Bates called them Heliconidae). Among these there occur not merely species which are edible, and thus require the protection of a disguise, but others which are rejected on account of their unpalatableness. How could the Ithomiine dress have developed in their case, and of what use is it, since the species would in any case be immune? In Eastern Brazil, for instance, there are four b.u.t.terflies, which bear a most confusing resemblance to one another in colour, marking, and form of wing, and all four are unpalatable to birds. They belong to four different genera and three sub-families, and we have to inquire: Whence came this resemblance and what end does it serve? For a long time no satisfactory answer could be found, but Fritz Muller,[51] seventeen years after Bates, offered a solution to the riddle, when he pointed out that young birds could not have an instinctive knowledge of the unpalatableness of the Ithomiines, but must learn by experience which species were edible and which inedible. Thus each young bird must have tasted at least one individual of each inedible species and discovered its unpalatability, before it learnt to avoid, and thus to spare the species. But if the four species resemble each other very closely the bird will regard them all as of the same kind, and avoid them all. Thus there developed a process of selection which resulted in the survival of the Ithomiine-like individuals, and in so great an increase of resemblance between the four species, that they are difficult to distinguish one from another even in a collection. The advantage for the four species, living side by side as they do e.g. in Bahia, lies in the fact that only one individual from the _mimicry-ring_ ("inedible a.s.sociation") need be tasted by a young bird, instead of at least four individuals, as would otherwise be the case. As the number of young birds is great, this makes a considerable difference in the ratio of elimination. The four Brazilian species are _Lycorea halia_ (Danainae), _Heliconius narcaea_ (_eucrate_) (Heliconinae), _Melinaea ethra_, and _Mechanitis lysimnia_ (Ithomiinae).

These interesting mimicry-rings (trusts), which have much significance for the theory, have been the subject of numerous and careful investigations, and at least their essential features are now fully established. Muller took for granted, without making any investigations, that young birds only learn by experience to distinguish between different kinds of victims. But Lloyd Morgan's[52]