June, X897.J WeBSTER : On PROTECTIVE MiMICRY. H 



with its body resting upon the style, the four-parted stigma projecting 

 beyond the tip of the abdomen, appearing like a part thereof, and when 

 the sun appears the two petals that were above the moth soon wilt and 

 fall down over the roof-like wings, concealing the hinder portion, leav- 

 incr the yellow part exposed as a part of the blossom, and so effectually 

 isAe moih concealed in this way during the day, that only a tramed 

 eye can detect its presence, and even then with extreme difficulty. 



Some time after Dr. Kellicott had published his observations, and be- 

 fore I knew of them, I find, from looking over some old note books where 

 I had recorded observations made in IlUnois, that a specimen of this 

 moth was taken by myself under much the same circumstances, except 

 in this case the pink color was exposed from under a reddening, discol- 

 ored leaf of Evening Primrose, in such a manner that the yellow 

 was concealed and the deception was so marked that I made a record 

 of it at the time. I still have the moth in my possession, and I have 

 never taken a specimen except on this plant, and concealed m the 

 manner indicated by the observations of Dr. Kellicott and myself. 



In "A Naturalist in the Transvaal," pp. 41, 42, Mr. W. L. Distant- 

 calls attention to the fact that while a butterfly, Hamammiida dcedalus, 

 in Sene-ambia, Calabar and the Cameroons, according to report, always 

 settles with the wings vertically closed, and which so closely resemble 

 the soil of the district, that it can with difficulty be seen, the color 

 varies with the soil in different localities, yet in the Transvaal, and 

 Natal he was never able to observe it to rest except with horizontally- 

 expanded wings, by which its protection was almost equally insured, by 

 the assimulative color of the same to the rocks and paths on which it 

 was usually found. Here we have an insect breaking away, or at any 

 rate diff-ering radically from a prevailing habit, where such habit would 

 tend to expose it to natural enemies, and following that habit where it 

 derives proteciion therefrom.* 



In the case of Podosesia syringcB, which when in flight the abdomen 

 has almost the exact position of Folistes annularis, when it is at rest 

 the posterior segments are bent downward and kept in motion, and it 



* While quite foreign to this particular point, it is interesting to note the dif- 

 ference in the action of our domestic sheep, in different parts of the country, on the 

 appearance of sudden danger, like a wolf or dog. In the ^^^^-"^"^^'^^Jj^'-''^;" 

 states, a flock wni break and run for a place of safety, and if still followed w.11 

 scatter, each individual for itself. But in the far West, on the appearance oi a ike 

 dancer, the sheep will run directly to a common centre, and arranging themselves 

 in a^circle, heads outward, await further movements of the enemy. 



