been happily termed "mimicry" by Mr. Bates, who
first discovered the object of these curious external imitations of one
insect by another belonging to a distinct genus or family, and sometimes
even to a distinct order. The clear-winged moth which resemble wasps and
hornets are the best examples of "mimicry" in our own country.

For a long time all the known cases of exact resemblance of one creature
to quite a different one were confined to insects, and it was therefore
with great pleasure that I discovered in the island of Bouru two birds
which I constantly mistook for each other, and which yet belonged to two
distinct and somewhat distant families. One of these is a honeysucker
named Tropidorhynchus bouruensis, and the other a kind of oriole, which
has been called Mimeta bouruensis. The oriole resembles the honeysucker
in the following particulars: the upper and under surfaces of the
two birds are exactly of the same tints of dark and light brown; the
Tropidorhynchus has a large bare black patch round the eyes; this is
copied in the Mimeta by a patch of black feathers. The top of the
head of the Tropidorhynchus has a scaly appearance from the narrow
scale-formed feathers, which are imitated by the broader feathers of
the Mimeta having a dusky line down each. The Tropidorhynchus has a pale
ruff formed of curious recurved feathers on the nape (which has given
the whole genus the name of Friar birds); this is represented in the
Mimeta by a pale band in the same position. Lastly, the bill of the
Tropidorhynchus is raised into a protuberant keel at the base, and the
Mimeta has the same character, although it is not a common one in the
genus. The result is, that on a superficial examination the birds are
identical, although they leave important structural differences, and
cannot be placed near each other in any natural arrangement.

In the adjacent island of Ceram we find very distinct species of both
these genera, and, strange to say, these resemble each other quite as
closely as do those of Bouru The Tropidorhynchus subcornutus is of an
earthy brown colour, washed with ochreish yellow, with bare orbits,
dusky: cheeks, and the usual recurved nape-ruff: The Mimeta forsteni
which accompanies it, is absolutely identical in the tints of every
part of the body, and the details are copied just as minutely as in the
former species.

We have two kinds of evidence to tell us which bird in this case is the
model, and which the cop