Contributions to the theory of natural selection. A series of essays ... By Alfred Russel Wallace ...

92 MIMICRY, AND OTHER PROTECTIVE
and armed with powerful jaws, as well as having some
disagreeable secretion. Some species of Eumorphidam
and Hispid%, small flat or hemispherical beetles which
are exceedingly abundant, and have a disagreeable secretion, are imitated by others of the very distinct
group of Longicornes (of which our common muskbeetle may be taken as an example). The extraordinary little Cyclopeplus batesii, belongs to the same
sub-family of this group as the Onychocerus scorpio
and 0. concentricus, which have already been adduced
as imitating with such wonderful accuracy the bark
of the trees they habitually frequent; but it differs
totally in outward appearance from every one of its
allies, having taken upon itself the exact shape and
colouring of a globular Corynomalus, a little stinking
beetle with clubbed antennae. It is curious to see how
these clubbed antennae are imitated by an insect belonging to a group with long slender antennae. The
sub-family Anisocerina, to which Cyclopeplus belongs,
is characterised by all its members possessing a little
knob or dilatation about the middle of the antennae.
This knob is considerably enlarged in C. batesii, and
the terminal portion of the antenna beyond it is so
small and slender as to be scarcely visible, and thus an
excellent substitute is obtained for the short clubbed
antennae of the Corynomalus. Erythroplatis corallifer
is another curious broad flat beetle, that no one would
take for a Longicorn, since it almost exactly resembles
Cephalodonta spinipes, one of the commonest of the
South American Hispidme; and what is still more