IX 
WARNING COLORATION AND MIMICRY 
267 
an indication of their hardness and consequent inedibility, as 
in the case of the hard beetles ; and it is not improbable that 
some of the phosphorescent fishes and other marine organisms 
may, like the glow-worm, hold out their lamp as a warning to 
enemies. 1 In Queensland there is an exceedingly poisonous 
spider, whose bite will kill a dog, and cause severe illness with 
excruciating pain in man. It is black, with a bright vermilion 
patch on the middle of the body; and it is so well recognised 
by this conspicuous coloration that even the spider-hunting 
wasps avoid it. 2 
Locusts and grasshoppers are generally of green protective 
tints, but there are many tropical species most gaudily 
decorated with red, blue, and black colours. On the same 
general grounds as those by which Mi - . Belt predicted the in¬ 
edibility of his conspicuous frog, we might safely predict the 
same for these insects; but we have fortunately a proof that 
they are so protected, since Mr. Charles Horne states that 
one of the bright coloured Indian locusts was invariably 
rejected when offered to birds and lizards. 3 
The examples now given lead us to the conclusion that 
colours acquired for the purpose of serving as a danger-signal 
to enemies are very widespread in nature, and, with the 
corresponding colours of the species which mimic them, 
furnish us with a rational explanation of a considerable 
portion of the coloration of animals which is outside the 
limits of those colours that have been acquired for either 
protection or recognition. There remains, however, another 
set of colours, chiefly among the higher animals, which, being 
connected with some of the most interesting and most 
disputed questions in natural history, must be discussed in a 
separate chapter. 
1 Mr. Belt first suggested this use of the light of the Lampyridse (fireflies 
and glow-worms )—■Naturalist in Nicaragua, p. 320. Mr. Verrill and 
Professor Meldola made the same suggestion in the case of medusaj and other 
phosphorescent marine organisms ( Nature, vol. xxx. pp. 281, 289). 
2 W. E. Armit, in Nature, vol. xviii. p. 642. 
3 Proc. Eat. Soc., 1S69, p. xiii. 
