Page:Darwinism by Alfred Wallace 1889.djvu/275

 fact, that insect-eating birds only learn by experience to distinguish the edible from the inedible butterflies, and in doing so necessarily sacrifice a certain number of the latter. The quantity of insectivorous birds in tropical America is enormous; and the number of young birds which every year have to learn wisdom by experience, as regards the species of butterflies to be caught or to be avoided, is so great that the sacrifice of life of the inedible species must be considerable, and, to a comparatively weak or scarce species, of vital importance. The number thus sacrificed will be fixed by the quantity of young birds, and by the number of experiences requisite to cause them to avoid the inedible species for the future, and not at all by the numbers of individuals of which each species consists. Hence, if two species are so much alike as to be mistaken for one another, the fixed number annually sacrificed by inexperienced birds will be divided between them, and both will benefit. But if the two species are very unequal in numbers, the benefit will be comparatively slight for the more abundant species, but very great for the rare one. To the latter it may make all the difference between safety and destruction.

To give a rough numerical example. Let us suppose that in a given limited district there are two species of Heliconidae, one consisting of only 1000, the other of 100,000 individuals, and that the quota required annually in the same district for the instruction of young insectivorous birds is 500. By the larger species this loss will be hardly felt; to the smaller it will mean the most dreadful persecution resulting in a loss of half the total population. But, let the two species become superficially alike, so that the birds see no difference between them. The quota of 500 will now be taken from a combined population of 101,000 butterflies, and if proportionate numbers of each suffer, then the weak species will only lose five individuals instead of 500 as it did before. Now we know that the different species of Heliconidae are not equally abundant, some being quite rare; so that the benefit to be derived in these latter cases would be very important. A slight inferiority in rapidity of flight or in powers of eluding attack might also be a cause of danger to an inedible species of scanty numbers, and in this case too the being