We have thus in Africa four different females of _Papilio merope_, each of which mimics a protected species of Danaid. They are not always locally separate, so that each is exclusively restricted to a particular region, for their areas of distribution often overlap, and, at the Cape for instance, one male form and three different forms of female have been reared from one set of eggs. In addition, we have the fact that between the two local forms of _Danais echeria_ transition forms occur, and that the mimetic females of _Papilio merope_ show the same transition forms locally, and we must admit that all these facts harmonize most beautifully with the selection interpretation, but defy any other. And that the last doubt may be dispelled, nature has preserved _the primitive female form_ on the continent of Africa--namely, in Abyssinia, where, along with the mimetic females, there are others which are tailed like the males (Pl. I, Fig. 1), and are like them in form and colour, a few minor differences excepted. Thus we have in _Papilio merope_ a species which, in the course of its distribution through Africa, has scarcely varied at all in the male sex, but in the female has almost everywhere lost the outward appearance of a _Papilio_, and has assumed that of a Danaid, which is protected by being unpalatable, and not even everywhere the appearance of the same species, but in each place that of the prevailing one, and sometimes of several in one region. These females thus show at the present day a polymorphism which consists of four chief mimetic forms, to which has to be added the primitive form--that resembling the male. This has survived in Abyssinia alone, and even there it is not the only one, but occurs along with some of the mimetic forms. To the question why only the females are mimetic in this and other cases, Darwin and Wallace have answered that the females are more in need of protection. In the first place, the males among butterflies are considerably in the majority, and, secondly, the females must live longer in order to be able to lay their eggs. Moreover, the females, which are loaded with numerous eggs, are heavier in flight, and during the whole period of egg-laying--that is, for a considerable time--they are exposed to the attacks of numerous enemies. Whether one of the abundant males is devoured sooner or later is immaterial to the persistence of the species, since one male is sufficient to fertilize several females. The death of a single female, on the other hand, implies a loss of several hundred descendants to the species. It is, therefore, intelligible that, in species already somewhat rare, the female must first of all be protected; that is to say, that all variations tending in the direction of her protection would give rise to a process of selection resulting in an augmentation of the protective characters.