April, *08] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 147 



Color and Environment. 



BY HOWARD AUSTEN SNYDER, Philadelphia, Pa. 



While collecting insects in the Bermuda Islands in the year 

 1905, I perceived that the common wasps I saw flying were 

 of a lighter shade than those of the United States, and ex- 

 pected to find in my net a species different from our own, 

 but on examination I saw that they were identical with our 

 Polistcs pallipes. The difference in shade I attribute to the 

 fact that as Bermuda has coral roads and white calcimined 

 roofs, the average shade of the country has had the effect of 

 producing a lighter shade in its insects. As every one knows, 

 the more contrasted in color or shade an insect or bird is with 

 relation to surrounding objects, or the background on which 

 it rests, the more liable it is to be discovered and devoured or 

 killed by its enemies. Locally we see that effect in the locust, 

 Trimerotropis maritima, and the tiger beetle, Cicindela dor- 

 salis, of our own coasts, which from their habit of frequent- 

 ing the light sandy tracts, have had their darker ancestors 

 eliminated by this fact in the economy of nature, and only the 

 light ones remain and are inconspicuous and less liable to de- 

 struction. Their color serves to keep them on the sand, 

 for let them wander inland where there is vegetation and a 

 darker soil, and they are soon discovered and destroyed. With 

 bees and swift flying creatures this rule cannot so well apply, 

 as they are never long in one place, and can elude their ene- 

 mies. The tiger beetle and locust alight frequently and are 

 more often resting in sight of enemies. 



I mean to indicate by the above that in any country, especi- 

 ally an isolated one, the insects will average darker or lighter 

 according to the shade of the land and vegetation. Let a 

 dark insect inhabit a country where the roads and the roofs 

 are white, it will be rendered conspicuous and thus exposed 

 to danger oftener than it would be in a country where the 

 surface is darker. The diagram below will portray in a gen- 

 eral way the appearance of Bermuda as compared with that 

 of the United States not exactly, of course. For the proper 



