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

94 MIMICRY, AND O TIER PROTECTIVE
There are a number of the larger tropical weevils
which have the elytra and the whole covering of the
body so hard as to be a great annoyance to the entomologist, because in attempting to transfix them the points
of his pins are constantly turned. I have found it necessary in these cases to drill a hole very carefully with
the point of a sharp penknife before attempting to insert
a pin. Many of the fine long-antennmd Anthribide (an
allied group) have to be treated in the same way. We
can easily understand that after small birds have in vain
attempted to eat these insects, they should get to know
them by sight, and ever after leave them alone, and it
will then be an advantage for other insects which are
comparatively soft and eatable, to be mistaken for them.
We need not be surprised, therefore, to find that there
are many Longicorns which strikinlly resemble the
"' hard beetles " of their own district. In South Brazil,
Acanthotritus dorsalis is strikingly like a Curculio of the
hard genus Heiliplus, and Mr. Bates assures me that lie
found Gymnlocerus cratosomoides (a Longicorn) on the
same tree with a hard Cratosomus (a weevil), which it
exactly mimics. Again, the pretty Longicorn, Phacellocera batesii, mimics one of the hard Anthribidme of the
genus Ptychoderes, having long slender antennme. In
the Moluccas we find Cacia anthriboides, a small Longicorn which might be easily mistaken for a very common
species of Anthribidm found in the same districts; and
the very rare Capnolymma stygiumn closely imitates the
common Mecocerus gazella, which abounded where it
was taken. Doliops curculionoides and other allied