IX WARNING COLORATION AND MIMICRY 267 



an indication of their hardness and consequent inedibility, as 

 in the case of the hard beetles ; and it is not improbable that 

 some of the phosphorescent fishes and other marine organisms 

 may, like the glow-worm, hold out their lamp as a warning to 

 enemies.i In Queensland there is an exceedingly poisonous 

 spider, whose bite will kill a dog, and cause severe illness with 

 excruciating pain in man. It is black, Avith a bright vermilion 

 patch on the middle of the body ; and it is so well recognised 

 by this conspicuous coloration that even the spider-hunting 

 wasps avoid it.^ 



Locusts and gi^asshoppers are generally of green protective 

 tints, but there are many tropical species most gaudily 

 decorated with red, blue, and black colours. On the same 

 general grounds as those by which Mr. Belt predicted the in- 

 edibility of his conspicuous frog, we might safely predict the 

 same for these insects ; but Ave have fortunately a proof that 

 they are so protected, since Mr. Charles Home states that 

 one of the bright coloiu'ed Indian locusts was invariably 

 rejected Avhen offered to birds and Hzards.^ 



The examples now given lead us to the conclusion that 

 colours acquired for the piu-pose of serving as a danger-signal 

 to enemies are very Avddespread in nature, and, Avith the 

 corresponding colours of the species AA'hich mimic them, 

 furnish us Avith a rational explanation of a considerable 

 portion of the coloration of animals which is outside the 

 limits of those colours that have been acc[uired for either 

 protection or recognition. There remains, hoAvever, another 

 set of colours, chiefly among the higher animals, Avhich, being 

 connected Avith some of the most interesting and most 

 disputed questions in natural history, must be discussed in a 

 separate chapter. 



1 I\Ir. Belt first suggested this use of the light of the Lampj-ridae (fireflies 

 and glow-worms) — Naturalist in Nicararjua, p. 320. Mr. Verrill aii<l 

 Professor Meldola made the same suggestion in the case of medusse and other 

 phosphorescent marine organisms {Nature, vol. xxx. pp. 281, 289). 



- W. E. Armit, iu Nature, vol. xviii. p. 642. 



' Proc. Ent. Soc, 1869, p. xiii. 



