CHAP. IX 
WARNING COLORATION AND MIMICRY 
233 
The Skunk as illustrating Warning Coloration. 
While staying a few daj^s, in July "1887, at the Summit 
Hotel on the Central Pacific Railway, I strolled out one evening 
after dinner, and on the road, not fifty yards from the house, 
I saw a pretty little white and black animal with a bushy tail 
coming towards me. As it came on at a slow pace and with¬ 
out any fear, although it evidently saw me, I thought at first 
that it must be some tame creature, when it suddenly occurred 
to me that it was a skunk. It came on till within five or six 
yards of me, then quietly climbed over a dwarf wall and dis¬ 
appeared under a small outhouse, in search of chickens, as the 
landlord afterwards told me. This animal possesses, as is well 
known, a most offensive secretion, which it has the power of 
ejecting over its enemies, and which effectually protects it 
from attack. The odour of this substance is so penetrating 
that it taints, and renders useless, everything it touches, 
or in its vicinity. Provisions near it become uneatable, and 
clothes saturated with it will retain the smell for several 
weeks, even though they are repeatedly washed and dried. 
A drop of the liquid in the eyes will cause blindness, and 
Indians are said not unfrequently to lose their sight from this 
cause. Owing to this remarkable power of offence the skunk 
is rarely attacked by other animals, and its black and white 
fur, and the bushy white tail carried erect when disturbed, 
form the danger-signals by which it is easily distinguished in 
the twilight or moonlight from unprotected animals. Its 
consciousness that it needs only to be seen to be avoided gives 
it that slowness of motion and fearlessness of aspect which 
are, as we shall see, characteristic of most creatures so pro¬ 
tected. 
Warning Colours among Insects. 
It is among insects that warning colours are best developed, 
and most abundant. We all know how well marked and 
conspicuous are the colours and forms of the stinging wasps 
and bees, no one of which in any part of the world is known 
to be protectively coloured like the majority of defenceless 
insects. Most of the great tribe of Malacoderms among 
beetles are distasteful to insect-eating animals. Our red and 
