Note 38 — Chapter VII

Many instances of mimicry are known to-day, but comparatively few of them have been studied in any detail. Yet a single carefully analysed case is worth dozens which are merely superficially recorded. In trying to arrive at some conception of the way in which the resemblance has come about we want to know the nature and extent of the likeness in the living as well as in the dead; the relative abundance of model and mimic; what are likely enemies and whether they could be supposed to select in the way required, whether the model is distasteful to them; whether intermediate forms occur among the mimics; how the various forms behave when bred together, etc., etc. Probably the form that from these many points of view has, up to the present, been studied with most care is that of the Swallow-tail, Papilio polytes. It is a common butterfly throughout the greater part of India and Ceylon, and closely allied forms, probably to be reckoned in the same species, reach eastwards through China as far as Hongkong. P. polytes is one of those species which exhibit polymorphism in the female sex. Three distinct forms of female are known, of which one is like the male, while the other two are very different. Indeed for many years they were regarded as distinct species, and given definite specific names. To Wallace belongs the credit of shewing that these three forms of female are all to be regarded as wives of the same type of male[38]. He shewed that there were no males corresponding to two of the females; also that the same one male form was always to be found wherever any of the females occurred. As the result of breeding experiments in more recent years Wallace's conclusions have been shewn to be perfectly sound.