NO. 7 PROTECTIVE ADAPTATIONS McATEE 3 



excessive. Undeniably selectionists have lieen absurd in their ch's- 

 quisitions on adaptations ; for instance " eye-spots " on a butterfly's 

 wings are to direct the attack of enemies to a nonvital spot, while 

 "eye-spots" on a caterpillar are "terrifying" and prevent even 

 a touch where merely a touch would be fatal ; in numerous species 

 of birds the male is colored red and black or orange and black, 

 characteristics that selectionists say have been developed by sexual 

 selection as an attraction to the opposite sex, yet the females of 

 these birds are supposed to be repelled by the same colors in possible 

 insect prey ; red insects are said to be warningly, red fruits invitingly 

 colored, and so on. A popular foible of similar type is that of sports- 

 men who hold up to admiration the marvelous protective coloration 

 of game birds, and in the next breath complain of severe depredations 

 on these birds by " vermin." 



But this is digressing and the writer is glad to acknowledge that 

 if all of the experimenters had been as critical of their methods and 

 conclusions as Mr. Sw^ynnerton, the tone of his former paper would 

 have been quite dififerent. For instance Mr. Swynnerton carried 

 on more experiments than any of the authors reviewed in the previous 

 communication, before he, according to his own confession, learned 

 how to experiment. This in itself confirms the writer's charges that 

 the experiments he reviewed were both inadequate and misinterpreted. 

 It may further be stated that the principal conclusions Mr. Swynner- 

 ton draws from his experiments and observations would have been 

 agreed to in advance by anyone experienced in the study of bird food. 

 Thus he concludes that birds show preferences among the food items 

 available to them, and that predatory animals of various groups show 

 more or less agreement in preferences. From his general experience 

 with birds he decides also that " Unless through sheer impossible 

 hardness, size, etc., there is practically no such thing as ' inedibility,' 

 and he appreciates that a group of insects, limited in numbers as are 

 butterflies, will not be taken by insectivorous birds out of proportion 

 to their abundance as compared to all insects available. 



These things did not require experimental test for they are cor- 

 roborated in every thorough report on the natural feeding habits 

 of birds. What can not l)e admitted, however, is that preferences 

 of birds learned by feeding them upon some certain group of insects 

 to an extent far greater than the birds ever prey upon them in nature, 

 reflect normal feeding habits, nor that there is evidence of intensive 

 enough feeding by discriminating enemies upon any group of insects 



'A brief preliminary statement of a few of the results of five years' special 

 testing of the theories of mimiery. Proc. Ent. Soc. Lond., 1915, pp. xxxii-xliii. 



