There would indeed be force in Mr.Mivart's objection, if we were to attempt to account for the above resemblances, independently of natural selection, through mere fluctuating variability; but as the case stands there is none.
Nor can I see any force in Mr.Mivart's difficulty with respect to "the last touches of perfection in the mimicry;" as in the case given by Mr.Wallace, of a walking-stick insect (Ceroxylus laceratus), which resembles "a stick grown over by a creeping moss or jungermannia." So close was this resemblance, that a native Dyak maintained that the foliaceous excrescences were really moss.

Insects are preyed on by birds and other enemies whose sight is probably sharper than ours, and every grade in resemblance which aided an insect to escape notice or detection, would tend towards its preservation; and the more perfect the resemblance so much the better for the insect.

Considering the nature of the differences between the species in the group which includes the above Ceroxylus, there is nothing improbable in this insect having varied in the irregularities on its surface, and in these having become more or less green-coloured; for in every group the characters which differ in the several species are the most apt to vary, while the generic characters, or those common to all the species, are the most constant.
The Greenland whale is one of the most wonderful animals in the world, and the baleen, or whalebone, one of its greatest peculiarities.

The baleen consists of a row, on each side of the upper jaw, of about 300 plates or laminae, which stand close together transversely to the longer axis of the mouth.

Within the main row there are some subsidiary rows.
The extremities and inner margins of all the plates are frayed into stiff bristles, which clothe the whole gigantic palate, and serve to strain or sift the water, and thus to secure the minute prey on which these great animals subsist.