“Dogs,” writes D. Dewar of this display, “regard it as a huge joke. Of this I have satisfied myself again and again, for when out coursing at Muttra we frequently came across cobras, which the dogs used invariably to chase, and we sometimes had great difficulty in keeping the dogs off, since they seemed to be unaware that the creature was venomous.”
Colonel Cunningham writes, on page 347 of _Some Indian Friends and Acquaintances_: “Sporting dogs are very apt to come to grief where cobras abound, as there is something very alluring to them in the sight of a large snake when it sits up nodding and snarling; and it is often difficult to come up in time to prevent the occurrence of irreparable mischief.”
Colonel Cunningham also states that many ruminants have a great animosity to snakes, and are prone to attack any that they may come across.
We may therefore well be sceptical as to the value of intimidating attitudes to those creatures which are in the habit of striking them.
In a work of this kind it is neither possible nor necessary to consider in great detail the mass of evidence which has been advanced in favour of the theory of mimetic resemblance.
Chapters vii. and viii. of Professor Poulton’s _Essays on Evolution_ contain an up-to-date statement of the facts in favour of the theory. Professor Poulton believes that in all cases mimetic resemblance is the result of the action of natural selection.
He admits that there is no direct evidence in its favour, but asserts that “the facts of the cosmos, so far as we know them, are consistent with the theory, and none of them inconsistent with it” (page 271).
We are not at all sure that no facts are against the theory of protective mimicry. We shall presently set forth some which to us seem, if not actually inconsistent with the theory, at least to point to the conclusion that the phenomenon may be explained otherwise than as a product of natural selection.
Let us first briefly state the case for the theory of protective mimicry.
1. It is asserted that the mimicking species and that which is mimicked are often not nearly related. For example, the unpalatable larva of the Cinnabar Moth (_Euchelia jacobaeæ_) is said to mimic a wasp, because it has black and yellow rings round its body.