Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection: A Series of EssaysWallace, Alfred Russel
Science
Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection: A Series of Essays
Wallace, Alfred Russel
Natural selection
The next pair, Papilio Theseus, and P. Antiphus, have been united as one
species both by De Haan and in the British Museum Catalogues. The
ordinary variety of P. Theseus found in Java almost as nearly resembles
P. Diphilus, inhabiting the same country. The most interesting case,
however, is the extreme female form of P. Memnon (figured by Cramer
under the name of P. Achates), which has acquired the general form and
markings of P. Coon, an insect which differs from the ordinary male P.
Memnon, as much as any two species which can be chosen in this extensive
and highly varied genus; and, as if to show that this resemblance is not
accidental, but is the result of law, when in India we find a species
closely allied to P. Coon, but with red instead of yellow spots (P.
Doubledayi), the corresponding variety of P. Androgeus (P. Achates,
Cramer, 182, A, B,) has acquired exactly the same peculiarity of having
red spots instead of yellow. Lastly, in the island of Timor, the female
of P. Oenomaus (a species allied to P. Memnon) resembles so closely P.
Liris (one of the Polydorus-group), that the two, which were often seen
flying together, could only be distinguished by a minute comparison
after being captured.
The last six cases of mimicry are especially instructive, because they
seem to indicate one of the processes by which dimorphic forms have been
produced. When, as in these cases, one sex differs much from the other,
and varies greatly itself, it may happen that occasionally individual
variations will occur having a distant resemblance to groups which are
the objects of mimicry, and which it is therefore advantageous to
resemble. Such a variety will have a better chance of preservation; the
individuals possessing it will be multiplied; and their accidental
likeness to the favoured group will be rendered permanent by hereditary
transmission, and, each successive variation which increases the
resemblance being preserved, and all variations departing from the
favoured type having less chance of preservation, there will in time
result those singular cases of two or more isolated and fixed forms,
bound together by that intimate relationship which constitutes them the
sexes of a single species. The reason why the females are more subject
to this kind of modification than the males is, probably, that their
slower flight, when laden with eggs, and their exposure to attack while
in the act of depositing their eggs upon leaves, render it especially
advantageous for them to have some additional protection. This they at
once obtain by acquiring a resemblance to other species which, from
whatever cause, enjoy a comparative immunity from persecution.
_Concluding remarks on Variation in Lepidoptera._
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