WARNING COLORATION AND MIMICRY 
The skunk as an example of warning coloration—Warning colours among 
insects — Butterflies — Caterpillars—Mimicry—How mimicry has been 
produced — Heliconidse — Perfection of the imitation—Other cases of 
mimicry among Lepidoptera — Mimicry among protected groups — Its 
explanation—Extension of the principle—Mimicry in other orders 
of insects—Mimicry among the vertebrata—Snakes—The rattlesnake 
and the cobra—Mimicry among birds—Objections to the theory of 
mimicry—Concluding remarks on warning colours and mimicry. 
We have now to deal with a class of colours which are 
the very opposite of those w r e have hitherto considered, since, 
instead of serving to conceal the animals that possess them 
or as recognition marks to their associates, they are developed 
for the express purpose of rendering the species conspicuous. 
The reason of this is that the animals in question are either 
the possessors of some deadly weapons, as stings or poison 
fangs, or they are uneatable, and are thus so disagree¬ 
able to the usual enemies of their kind that they are never 
attacked when their peculiar powers or properties are known. 
It is, therefore, important that they should not be mis¬ 
taken for defenceless or eatable species of the same class or 
order, since in that case they might suffer injury, or even death, 
before their enemies discovered the danger or the uselessness 
of the attack. They require some signal or danger-flag 
which shall serve as a warning to would-be enemies not to 
attack them, and they have usually obtained this in the 
form of conspicuous or brilliant coloration, very distinct 
from the protective tints of the defenceless animals allied to 
them. 
