One of the characters by which some beetles are protected is excessive hardness of the elytra and integuments. Several genera of weevils (Curculionidae) are thus saved from attack, and these are often mimicked by species of softer and more eatable groups.
Fig. 27. a. Doliops sp. (Longicorn) mimics Pachyrhynchus orbifae, (b) (a hard curculio). c. Doliops curculionoides mimics (d) Pachyrhynchus sp. e. Scepastus pachyrhynchoides (a grasshopper), mimics (f) Apocyrtus sp. (a hard curculio). g. Doliops sp. mimics (h) Pachyrhynchus sp. i. Phoraspis (grasshopper) mimics (k) a Coccinella. All the above are from the Philippines. The exact correspondence of the colours of the insects themselves renders the mimicry much more complete in nature than it appears in the above figures.
In South America, the genus Heilipus is one of these hard groups, and both Mr. Bates and M. Roelofs, a Belgian entomologist, have noticed that species of other genera exactly mimic them. So, in the Philippines, there
