IX WARNING COLORATION AND MIMICRY 235 



their young ; and although the Heliconidae swarmed in the 

 vicinity, and from their slow flight could have been easily 

 caught, not one was ever pursued, although other butterflies 

 did not escape. His tame monkey also, which Avould greedily 

 munch up other butterflies, would never eat the Heliconidse. 

 It would sometimes smell them, but always rolled them up in 

 its hand and then dropped them. 



We have also some corresponding evidence as to the 

 distastefulness of the Eastern Danaidae. The Hon. IVIr. 

 Justice Newton, who assiduously collected and took notes 

 upon the Lepidoptera of Bombay, informed Mr. Butler of the 

 British Museum that the large and swift- flying butterfly 

 Charaxes psaphon, was continually persecuted by the bulbul, 

 so that he rarely caught a specimen of this species which had 

 not a piece snipped out of the hind wings. He oftered one to 

 a bulljul which he had in a cage, and it was greedily devoiu'ed, 

 whilst it Avas only by repeated persecution that he succeeded 

 in inducing the bird to touch a Danais.^ 



Besides these three families of butterflies, there are certain 

 gi-oups of the gi-eat genus Papilio — the true swallow- tailed 

 butterflies — which have all the characteristics of uneatable 

 insects. They have a special coloration, usually red and 

 black (at least in the females), they fly slowly, they are very 

 abundant, and they possess a peculiar odour somewhat like 

 that of the Heliconida^. One of these groups is common in 

 tropical America, another in tropical Asia, and it is curious 

 that, although not very closely allied, they have each the same 

 red and black colours, and are very distinct from all the other 

 butterflies of their respective countries. There is reason to 

 believe also that many of the brilliantly coloured and weak- 

 flying diiu-nal moths, like the fine tropical Agaristidae and 

 burnet-moths, are similarly protected, and that their con- 

 spicuous colom-s serve as a warning of inedibility. The 

 common bui-net-moth (Anthrocera filipendula) and the equally 

 conspicuous ragwort-moth (Euchelia jacobese) have been proved 

 to be distasteful to insect-eating creatures. 



^ Nature, vol. iii. p. 165. Professor Meldola observed that specinieus of 

 Dauais aud Euplaea iu collections were less subject to the attacks of mites 

 {Proc. Ent. Soc. , 1877, p. xii. ) ; and this was corroborated by Mr. Jeuner Weir. 

 Entomologist, 1882, vol. x.v. p. 160. 



