Wallace was the next after Bates to interest himself in mimicry and, from
his study of the butterflies of the Oriental region[4], shewed that in this
part of {13} the world too there existed these remarkable resemblances
between species belonging to different families. Perhaps the most important
part of Wallace's contribution was the demonstration that in some species
not only was it the female alone that "mimicked" but that there might be
several different forms of female mimicking different models, and in some
cases all unlike the male of their own species. One of the species studied
by Wallace, _Papilio polytes_, is shewn on Plate V. We shall have occasion
to refer to this case later on, and it is sufficient here to call attention
to the three different forms of female, of which one is like the male while
the other two resemble two other species of _Papilio_, _P. hector_ and _P.
aristolochiae_, which occur in the same localities. Instances where the
female alone of some unprotected species mimics a model with obnoxious
properties are common in all tropical countries. It has been suggested that
this state of things has come about owing to the greater need of protection
on the part of the female. Hampered by the disposal of the next generation
the less protected female would be at a greater disadvantage as compared
with the mimic than would the corresponding male whose obligations to
posterity are more rapidly discharged. The view of course makes the
assumption that the female transmits her peculiar properties to her
daughters but not to her sons.
A few years later Trimen[5] did for Africa what Bates had done for America
and Wallace for {14} Indo-Malaya. It was in this paper that he elucidated
that most remarkable of all cases of mimicry--_Papilio dardanus_ with his
harem of different consorts, all tailless, all unlike himself, and often
wonderfully similar to unpalatable forms found in the same localities (cf.
p. 30).
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