BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS
unworthy conception of a Creator. And such an assumption becomes even grotesque when the facts are examined a little more closely. The wings of ordinary moths are developed within the much smaller wing envelopes of the chrysalis and expand to their full size only after emergence. Before this they can fit into the narrow space only by a complicated system of pleating. But the rudimentary wing of the female vapourer lies within a chrysalis wing far larger than itself.
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Thus A, Fig 1, shows the outline of the chrysalis wing drawn 7 times larger and broader than its natural size, and B, similarly magnified, shows the outline of the wing of the female moth, which lies within it and remains of the same size when the moth has emerged.
To the evolutionist these facts mean that the useless wings, being probably a source of danger to the moth as well as a waste of material, have been gradually reduced by natural selection until they became first no longer and finally much smaller than the chrysalis wing cases. These chrysalis wing cases are also themselves reduced but, concealed in the cocoon and less subject to selection, their shrinkage is not nearly so great.
The most wonderful instance of butterfly mimicry that we now know is the “swallowtail”—Papilio dardanus—of Africa and the neighboring islands. (See Fig. 2.) The male is a pale-yellow black-marked butterfly, having, like most swallowtails, long tails to the hind wing. A male from Madagascar and one from Uganda are shown in the accom-
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