Darwin and Modern Science [199]
by Burchell. A specimen of the Amphidesmus exists in his collection and it bears "651." Turning to the same number in the African Catalogue we find that the beetle is correctly placed among the Longicorns, that it was captured at Uitenhage on Nov. 18, 1813, and that it was found associated with Lycid beetles in flowers ("consocians cum Lycis 78-87 in floribus"). Looking up Nos. 78-87 in the collection and catalogue, three species of Lycidae are found, all captured on Nov. 18, 1813, at Uitenhage. Burchell recognised the wide difference in affinity, shown by the distance between the respective numbers; for his catalogue is arranged to represent relationships. He observed, what students of mimicry are only just beginning to note and record, the coincidence between model and mimic in time and space and in habits. We are justified in concluding that he observed the close superficial likeness although he does not in this case expressly allude to it.
One of the most interesting among the early observations of superficial resemblance between forms remote in the scale of classification was made by Darwin himself, as described in the following passage from his letter to Henslow, written from Monte Video, Aug. 15, 1832: "Amongst the lower animals nothing has so much interested me as finding two species of elegantly coloured true Planaria inhabiting the dewy forest! The false relation they bear to snails is the most extraordinary thing of the kind I have ever seen." ("More Letters", I. page 9.)
Many years later, in 1867, he wrote to Fritz Muller suggesting that the resemblance of a soberly coloured British Planarian to a slug might be due to mimicry. ("Life and Letters", III. page 71.)
The most interesting copy of Bates's classical memoir on Mimicry ("Contributions to an Insect Fauna of the Amazon Valley". "Trans. Linn. Soc." Vol. XXIII. 1862, page 495.), read before the Linnean Society in 1861, is that given by him to the man who has done most to support and extend the theory. My kind friend has given that copy to me; it bears the inscription:
"Mr A.R. Wallace from his old travelling companion the Author."
Only a year and a half after the publication of the "Origin", we find that Darwin wrote to Bates on the subject which was to provide such striking evidence of the truth of Natural Selection: "I am glad to hear that you have specially attended to 'mimetic' analogies--a most curious subject; I hope you publish on it. I have for a long time wished to know whether what Dr Collingwood asserts is true--that the most striking cases generally occur between insects inhabiting the same country." (The letter is dated April 4, 1861. "More Letters", I. page 183.)
The next letter, written about six months later, reveals the remarkable fact that the illustrious naturalist who had anticipated Edward Forbes in the explanation of arctic forms on alpine heights ("I was forestalled in only one important point, which my vanity has always made me regret, namely, the explanation by means of the Glacial period of the presence of the same species of plants and of some few animals on distant mountain summits and in the arctic regions. This view pleased me so much that I wrote it out in extenso, and I believe that it was read by Hooker some years before E. Forbes published his celebrated memoir on the subject. In the very few points in which we differed, I still think that I was in the right. I have never, of course, alluded in print to my having independently worked out this view." "Autobiography, Life and Letters", I. page 88.), had also anticipated H.W. Bates in the theory of Mimicry: "What a capital paper yours will be on mimetic resemblances! You will make quite a new subject of it. I had thought of such cases as a difficulty; and once, when corresponding with Dr Collingwood, I thought of your explanation; but I drove it from my mind, for I felt that I had not knowledge to judge one way or the other." (The letter is dated Sept. 25, 1861: "More Letters", I. page 197.)
Bates read his paper before the Linnean
One of the most interesting among the early observations of superficial resemblance between forms remote in the scale of classification was made by Darwin himself, as described in the following passage from his letter to Henslow, written from Monte Video, Aug. 15, 1832: "Amongst the lower animals nothing has so much interested me as finding two species of elegantly coloured true Planaria inhabiting the dewy forest! The false relation they bear to snails is the most extraordinary thing of the kind I have ever seen." ("More Letters", I. page 9.)
Many years later, in 1867, he wrote to Fritz Muller suggesting that the resemblance of a soberly coloured British Planarian to a slug might be due to mimicry. ("Life and Letters", III. page 71.)
The most interesting copy of Bates's classical memoir on Mimicry ("Contributions to an Insect Fauna of the Amazon Valley". "Trans. Linn. Soc." Vol. XXIII. 1862, page 495.), read before the Linnean Society in 1861, is that given by him to the man who has done most to support and extend the theory. My kind friend has given that copy to me; it bears the inscription:
"Mr A.R. Wallace from his old travelling companion the Author."
Only a year and a half after the publication of the "Origin", we find that Darwin wrote to Bates on the subject which was to provide such striking evidence of the truth of Natural Selection: "I am glad to hear that you have specially attended to 'mimetic' analogies--a most curious subject; I hope you publish on it. I have for a long time wished to know whether what Dr Collingwood asserts is true--that the most striking cases generally occur between insects inhabiting the same country." (The letter is dated April 4, 1861. "More Letters", I. page 183.)
The next letter, written about six months later, reveals the remarkable fact that the illustrious naturalist who had anticipated Edward Forbes in the explanation of arctic forms on alpine heights ("I was forestalled in only one important point, which my vanity has always made me regret, namely, the explanation by means of the Glacial period of the presence of the same species of plants and of some few animals on distant mountain summits and in the arctic regions. This view pleased me so much that I wrote it out in extenso, and I believe that it was read by Hooker some years before E. Forbes published his celebrated memoir on the subject. In the very few points in which we differed, I still think that I was in the right. I have never, of course, alluded in print to my having independently worked out this view." "Autobiography, Life and Letters", I. page 88.), had also anticipated H.W. Bates in the theory of Mimicry: "What a capital paper yours will be on mimetic resemblances! You will make quite a new subject of it. I had thought of such cases as a difficulty; and once, when corresponding with Dr Collingwood, I thought of your explanation; but I drove it from my mind, for I felt that I had not knowledge to judge one way or the other." (The letter is dated Sept. 25, 1861: "More Letters", I. page 197.)
Bates read his paper before the Linnean