68 COLOURATION OF INSECTS. 



polymorphous. The common convolvulus, which feeds on sweet 

 potato, convolvulus, &c., appears in some half-dozen habili- 

 ments. The dorsal streak, naturally green, often becomes more 

 or less darkened by distributed dark pigment as the larva grows. 

 The same may be said of the lateral lines and of the oblique 

 connective lines between the body segments. The extent of 

 darkening pigment, and its manner of distribution on a field of 

 green, determines the pattern. Thus some are quite green, 

 others quite or almost black, and many patterns are intermediate. 

 The colouration is protective. To ascribe to the creature the 

 power of natural selection is a fable. The greens instinctively 

 shelter in the leaves ; the dark varieties cling to the stems or lay 

 close to the ground. Collect a number and keep in a box with 

 leaves only. The browns do not turn green, but all feed. They 

 are automatous creatures and cannot turn themselves green or 

 brown any more than the new-born babe could determine in 

 natural selection whether it would be boy or girl. It is more 

 rational and practicable to argue from analogy, that as in all 

 creatures the sexes bear a nearly equal relation, or only differ in 

 such proportion to meet the exigencies of death, accident, &c., of 

 the species, so the caterpillars of a species which feeds on tree 

 or bush shall be produced for the safety of the species as a whole 

 in such ratio of morphism as the occasion and habits demand. 

 Thus in any batch of caterpillars, a proportion can find secretive 

 shelter under and on the leaves, while another proportion must 

 seek for safety on the brown or dark stems, &c. Each cater- 

 pillar did not prepare itself for its duty post of safety, but all 

 were prepared in individual colouration to intuitively distribute 

 themselves as their Creator and Ruler determined. The 

 Darwinism which relegates all such pre-natal determinations 

 to the power of the creature itself in natural selection is, as a 

 writer to the Banking Record lately tersely put it, nothing but 

 polytheism. Such surmissals are unphilosophical and unscien- 

 tific. 



The colouration of the butterfly is doubtless protective and 

 nuptial. The richness of colouration as the creature flies may 

 well dazzle the creature's enemies. As the pea-hen, sombre and 

 quiet, admires the display, dignity and majesty of her consequen- 

 tial gaudy-coloured lord, so the sombre lady butterfly is evidently 



