of the case in as far as we know it, in Poulton's
_Essays on Evolution_ (pp. 373-375[49]). 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 the 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_, occurs, of which both sexes are very similar in
form and markings to the non-mimetic male of _P. dardanus_, so that it
probably represents the ancestor of this latter species.

In face of such facts as these every attempt at another explanation
must fail. Similarly all the other details of the case fulfil the
preliminary postulates of selection, and leave no room for any other
interpretation. That the males do not take on the protective colouring
is easily explained, because they are in general more numerous, and
the females are more important for the preservation of the species,
and must also live longer in order to deposit their eggs. We find the
same state of things in many other species, and in one case (_Elymnias
undularis_) in which the male is also mimetically coloured, it copies
quite a differently coloured immune species from the model followed by
the female. This is quite intelligible when we consider that if there
were _too many_ false immune types, the birds would soon discover that
there were palatable individuals among those with unpalatable warning
colours. Hence the imitation of different immune species by _Papilio
dardanus_!

I regret that lack of space prevents my bringing forward more examples
of mimicry and discussing them fully. But from the case of _Papilio
dardanus_ alone there is much to be learnt which is of the highest
importance for our understanding of transformations. It shows us
chiefly what I once called, somewhat strongly perhaps, _the
omnipotence of natural selection_ in answer to an opponent who had
spoken of its "inadequacy." We here see that one and the same species
is capable of producing four or five different patterns of colouring
and marking; thus the colouring and marking are not, as has often been
supposed, a necessary outcome of the specific nature of the species,
but a true adaptation, which cannot arise as a direct effect of
climatic conditions, but solely through what I may call the sorting
out of the variations produced by the spe