The Volucellæ as Examples of Aggressive Mimicry

Abstract

AN interesting point in the Volucellæ as examples of aggressive mimicry is the fact that they were first used to support the teleological theories of an earlier day, and were subsequently claimed by natural selection. Thus Messrs. Kirby and Spence speak of them (Second Edition, 1817, vol. ii., p. 223) as affording “a beautiful instance of the wisdom of Providence in adapting means to their end;” and alter describing the resemblance of the flies to the bees, they continue, “Thus has the Author of nature provided that they may enter these nests and deposit their eggs undiscovered. Did these intruders venture themselves amongst the humble-bees in a less kindred form, their lives would probably pay the forfeit of their presumption.” In this theory of Providence it is hard to see where the bees come in. In 1867, A. R. Wallace published an article on “Mimicry and other Protective Resemblances among Animals”, which was in 1875 republished in his “Essays on Natural Selection.” In this essay (p. 75 of the volume) he spoke of this interpretation as the only case in which an example of mimicry had been “thought to be useful, and to have been designed as a means to a definite and intelligible purpose.” He accepts it as a product of natural selection, and since that time it has been constantly used as a well-known example of this principle, so well known, indeed, that the history of it became unnecessary in any publication where space was an object.