Protective Coloration 343 



taken to show that the matching of the animal's color to 

 the background is an important element in its protection. 

 The closer the agreement in colors, the less likely is the ani- 

 mal to be destroyed. 



Darwin himself in The Origin of Species says, " Hawks 

 are guided by eyesight to their prey — so much so, that on 

 parts of the Continent persons are warned not to keep white 

 pigeons, these being the most liable to destruction. 



In 1907 Dr. Charles B. Davenport reported from the 

 Station for the Experimental Study of Evolution at Cold 

 Spring Harbor that twenty-four chicks had been destroyed 

 by hawks one afternoon, and that only one of these had a 

 barred or mottled pattern. The inference which Davenport 

 drew was the obvious advantage to the birds of a pattern 

 that made them invisible to their enemies. Two years later 

 Raymond Pearl at the Agricultural Experiment Station at 

 Orono, Maine, reported on fowls destroyed on the range in 

 the course of a season. Out of some 6600 animals, 325 were 

 eliminated by rats or by other enemies. Of these 290 were 

 barred and 3 5 solid color. The proportions destroyed in each 

 group were almost identical. Pearl concludes, " The rela- 

 tive inconspicuousness of the barred color pattern afforded 

 no great or striking protection against elimination by natural 

 enemies during the season of April i to October i, 1909 on 

 the poultry range of the Maine Experiment Station." What- 

 ever color pattern may do for birds elsewhere it cannot be 

 assumed of equal protective value under all circumstances. 



Protective Resemblance 



Another type of protection was assumed by Darwin 

 to come to animals that resemble others so closely as to be 

 mistaken for them. According to the theory, the model is 

 already protected by disagreeable taste or otherwise against 

 its natural enemies. The mimic, by taking on this appear- 

 ance, received a secondary protection. It was not supposed, 

 of course, that any species of insects deliberately took on 



