existence of mimetic palatable forms--confirm it in the most convincing
manner. Of the many cases now known I select one, which is especially
remarkable, and which has been thoroughly investigated, Papilio dardanus
(merope), a large, beautiful, diurnal butterfly which ranges from Abyssinia
throughout the whole of Africa to the south coast of Cape Colony.

The males of this form are everywhere ALMOST the same in colour and in form
of wings, save for a few variations in the sparse black markings on the
pale yellow ground. But the females occur in several quite different forms
and colourings, and one of these only, the Abyssinian form, is like the
male, while the other three or four are MIMETIC, that is to say, they copy
a butterfly of quite a different family the Danaids, which are among the
IMMUNE forms. In each region the females have thus copied two or three
different immune species. There is much that is interesting to be said in
regard to these species, but it would be out of keeping with the general
tenor of this paper to give details of this very complicated case of
polymorphism in P. dardanus. Anyone who is interested in the matter will
find a full and exact statement of the case in as far as we know it, in
Poulton's "Essays on Evolution" (pages 373-375). (Professor Poulton has
corrected some wrong descriptions which I had unfortunately overlooked in
the Plates of my book "Vortrage uber Descendenztheorie", and which refer to
Papilio dardanus (merope). These mistakes are of no importance as far as
and understanding of the mimicry-theory is concerned, but I hope shortly to
be able to correct them in a later edition.) I need only add that three
different mimetic female forms have been reared from the eggs of a single
female in South Africa. The resemblance of these forms to their immune
models goes so far that even the details of the LOCAL forms of the models
are copied by the mimetic species.

It remains to be said that in Madagascar a butterfly, Papilio meriones,