Such, then, are the colours of butterflies, and, as may be imagined, comparatively few of these gorgeous liveries have been acquired through the principle of protective resemblance—using the term in its widest sense, to include those cases where one species becomes, as it were, the double or wraith of another. Mimicry is the word which, by a ludicrous process of false reasoning, naturalists have convinced themselves it is right to apply to this particular kind of resemblance, and no other one; though why a butterfly should _mimic_ another butterfly and only _resemble_ a leaf, “_quien sabe?_” as the Spaniards say. The principal reason adduced for this misuse of language, viz. that the wrong word is more convenient than any right one, providing us with the useful series, _mimic_, _mimicry_, _mimetic_, _mimicker_, _mimicked_, _mimicking_, obviously applies to the one case as well as the other, and if it is an advantage to be absurd in one way, surely it is a double one to be absurd in two. On these grounds I would suggest to naturalists that, having broken down the proper and natural confinements of the word in question, they should rather extend its use than limit it, to the extent even of calling their children “mimetic forms,” should they happen to resemble them, and thinking twice before punishing a son for merely “mimicking” his father. But, leaving this, how—to take the jargon as one finds it—are the glorious colours of butterflies to be explained when they are due neither to protective resemblance, which is not mimicry, though it very much resembles it, nor to mimicry, which is distinct from protective resemblance, though mimicking it exactly? Certainly neither of these will do to account for uncopied hues and patterns, which are like nothing in the world but their own loveliness, unless, indeed, it be the rival glories of the most resplendent birds. Still less will aggressive resemblance—though, as we see, it can make spiders look like flowers—explain them. The great governing cause which produces such effects as these, as well as most others in nature, is natural selection; but we must look beyond natural selection even, if we wish to understand all the beauty that we see in the animal world, and especially the higher developments of it.