EXPERIMENTS ON PROTECTIVE COLORATION 487 



the cage.-' In thirty seconds it flew direct to the ashes from which 

 it took one Melanophis, returning to its usual perch. A few seconds 

 later it left its perch and circled over the backgrounds, returning to the 

 perch and then it again flew direct to the ash background, from which 

 it took the other Melanoplus. For five minutes it flew back and forth 

 from point to point in the cage, at one time alighting near the back- 

 grounds but not feeding. The observations were then discontinued. 

 Experiment 11. Figures 25 and 34- Two Oecanthus were placed 

 on dark earth and two on a background of mingled sand and ashes 

 over which were distributed grass stems and awns closely resembling 

 in color the insect's wings, the former combination presenting the 

 greater contrast. In five minutes the kingbird flew from the perch 

 to a point on the walls of the cage nearly over the backgrounds which 

 it closely inspected. It then flew across the cage and returned to this 

 point from which one minute later it dropped to the backgrounds and 

 a moment later took one insect from the earth. Two minutes later 

 it again flew to the backgrounds-^ and took the other insect from the 

 earth. The two insects were left on the grass and sand background 

 and in about ten ininutes'the kingbird alit near them twice but took 

 no apparent notice of them. The observations were ended after about 

 thirty-five minutes up to which time they had not been taken, . 



Summary 



In this series of eleven experiments the combination showing 

 the greater contrast was chosen eleven times. This is the only 

 series in which protective coloration was efficient in 100 per cent 

 of the trials. 



SERIES IX 



In this series the domestic chicken (G alius domesticus) 

 and various species of insects, as recorded in the individual 

 experiments, were employed. 



The experiments while few in number cover a series of years 

 (1910, '11, and '12) and were conducted in different cages, the 

 size of which I believe to be immaterial, as the chickens always 

 walked up to the backgrounds, giving them abundant oppor- 

 tunity to see their prey at close quarters. I have therefore 

 not recorded the size of cage in the various experiments. One 

 bird was used in Experiments 1 to 7, another in 8 to 11, -and a third 



-" Distance from backgrounds not noted. 



-' The point from which it flew was not noted. 



