lC-16 JOURNAL, BOMB A Y NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XIJ(. 



Bates observed a species of mantis that closely imitated a leaf •which found 

 itself in the tiack of an aimy of the terrible foraging an Is of those regions. 

 Seeming aware of its dangerous situation it remained perfectly inert, while the 

 ants crawled over it and left it unmolested. Had it moved in the slightest 

 it would inevitably have been torn to pieces, 



Agam we have butterflies that obtain comparative immunity through their 

 close resemblance to other lepidoptera which are distasteful lo animals that 

 prey on this class of insects. Others again mimic bees and wasps. Certain 

 spiders and mantids in this country are fashioned so as to be indistinguishable 

 from ants without the very closest scrutiny. Other spiders escape detection 

 through their similarity to the particles of debris that conglomerate in their 

 webs and among which they squat motionless. Yet another Indian spider — 

 Peucetia viriuana — is strikingly like the fruit of a small shrub — Jatropha gossypi- 

 folia. It undoubtedly secures much of its living booty by squatting among 

 flowers and pouncing on unwary insect visitors in search of honey, they mistak- 

 ing the spider for the fruit. This spider does not restrict itself to the 

 shrub referred to and may be found on other shrubs, therefore its colour and 

 marking cannot be due to environment. Besides why should it not resemble 

 the flowers of Jatropha, the latter are more striking, being red, the berry being 

 light-green traversed by a few whitish lines — all of which as well as the long 

 hairs on the stalk are admirably reproduced on the spider's abdomen and legs. 



Let us now consider the blight and very showy colours of certain caterpil- 

 lars and Orthopteia, or of the large spider common in many Indian jungles, a 

 very conspicuous object suspended in the middle of a large yellow viscous web 

 stretched across paths or dealings — NqjJdIa maculuta. These colours cannot be 

 accounted for as induced by environment. They are, however, explained by 

 natural selection, for they aie warning colours. The creatuies thus colomed 

 are distasteful to the enemies of allied animals for one reason or another, and 

 it is to their advantage to blazon abroad, that all that fly may know, the fact 

 that they are unsavoury — perchance poisonous. 



That this is not mere speculation is proved by many recorded observations. 

 In the pages of our Jou.nal some yeais ago (I have not access to my books at 

 present) a note was published on the subject of a bear in captivity, that held 

 brilliantly adorned locusts in abhorence, though inordinately fond of others 

 of more sober ( protectively coloured) dress. 



Numerous other facts of a like nature might be quoted, but I need only 

 refer the reader to the pages of Darwin and Wal'ace and I will content my- 

 self with one more and that perhaps the most striking of any, in support of 

 my thesis. 



I ask how else than by the theoiy of protective colouration fosteied by 

 natural solection is the extraordinarily faithful imitation by ctrtain moths of 

 the excreta of birds to be explained. These moths usually lie on green leaves 

 just in the position chance fallen excreta would take up. It requiiesa close 

 inspection to recognise the one fiom the other, as any one who saw thia 



