1913 Barbour, The Case of Roosevelt vs. Thayei 89 



hand perhaps the most remarkable ca e of protective coloration 

 on record is careful nol to generalize <>r to force on the reader any 

 such protective \ ;i 1 1 1< ■ to account for the facts, He concludes liis 

 discussion by saying iliiit liis few statements illustrate the paucity 

 of our direcl evidence <>n the whole question of protective colora- 

 tion, and remark i thai mosl of our conclu ions are entirely of an 

 inferential nature. 



The results of Prof. J. Eieighard's studies, ;it the Tortugas 

 Islands, i»l tlic coloration <>l' reef-fishes are very important in this 

 connection and worthy of careful examination. Will Mi - . Thayer 

 inform us whether or not he has seen iliis work 7 



As to mimetic resemblances our besl theories have been entirely 

 inferential in nature. We have jumped ;it conclusions, obvious 

 enough though they seemed at first sight. In his "Darwinism of 

 Today" Kellog calls attention to a case of overspecialization as an 

 argument against natural selection. lie describes the well known 

 Kallima butterfly. After showing how unnecessarily perfecl the 

 butterfly's resemblance is, he says " When natural selection has got 

 the Kallima along to that highly desirable stage where it is so like 

 ;i dead leaf in general seeming that every bird sweeping by sees it 

 only as :i brown leaf clinging precariously ton half-s1 ripped branch, 

 it was natural selection's bounden duty in conformation with its 

 obligation to its makers to stop the further modifying of the 

 Kallima, and jusl to hold it up to its hardly won advantage, lint 

 what happens, Kallima continues its way, specifically and absurdly 

 dead leaf-wards, until today it is much too fragile ;i thing to lie 

 otherwise than very gingerly handled by its rather anxious foster 

 parents, the Neo-Darwinian selectionists." My own experience 

 has been that Kallima often, perhaps even generally, rests with 

 wings open or fanning. 



[t seems a pitj to return to the case of the zebra. We dra'w the 

 following conclusions from the observations of careful naturalists: 



I The zebra is one of the most plentiful of all the plains' dwellers. 



II That he and the harteheests form in many regions almost 

 the sole food of the lions. 



III The lion kills at will and with little effort. This is shown 



by numberless actual observations. 



IV The zebra shows little concern ill the lion's presence. lie 



