CAUSE OF EVOLUTION 393 



Co. These figures show the wonderful skill with which 

 the cell colonies in butterflies, beetles, etc., are able to 

 build their moving structures or habitations in shapes 

 and colors so as to deceive and escape their enemies. Fig. 

 47 shows that they have in addition painted the inside of 

 the wings a most beautiful color to attract the opposite 

 sex. Intelligent man is doing the same thing today, but 

 he did not discover the art nor its benefits until just re- 

 cently. The cells who build these beetles, caterpillars 

 and butterflies have understood and practiced the art for 

 ages. They knew the secret of how to produce the color- 

 ing matter and with it paint these artistic figures thou- 

 sands of years before man lived in houses. 



I have myself experimented with caterpillars, who can 

 color themselves as may be necessary to simulate the 

 place on which they are resting and it certainly is won- 

 derful when you consider the situation, that the cells of 

 the skin must first have a picture of the outside before 

 they can arrange the pigment so as to affect the desired 

 color. Just as wonderful is the ability of the cells, which 

 make up the caterpillar, to tear down and dismantle the 

 caterpillar and with the same material build a new and 

 different structure designed to navigate the air, which 

 we call a butterfly. A text book on zoology has the fol- 

 lowing on Protective Coloring: "Mr. Leslie inclosed 

 certain caterpillars of one kind in two boxes, one black 

 and the other white, and he found that the color of the 

 chrysalis in each case harmonized with the color of the 

 box. Mr. R. Holland also found the cocoons of the Em- 

 peror moth to be either white or brown, according as 

 they were spun on paper or amid dead grass, or on soil. 

 Mr. E. B. Poulton has ascertained that in a large number 

 of larvae of a Vanessa butterfly surrounded by variously 



