NOVEMBER 237 



The former is Protective, the latter Aggressive 

 Resemblance. In Protective Resemblance the 

 animal escapes notice by harmonising in colour 

 with its surroundings, or by resembling some other 

 creature in which its enemies feel no interest. 

 Sometimes the animal will resemble an object 

 which is attractive to its prey, and sometimes 

 another which it desires to injure. These various 

 conditions are delightful to read of in Mr. Poulton's 

 pages. 



Protective mimicry generally shows itself in the 

 adoption of warning colours, which are assumed to 

 help its wearer to survive natural dangers. I 

 suppose that if we humans were merely an inferior 

 race of beings on this globe and liable to be preyed 

 upon by a species of creatures ten times our size, 

 our first object in life would be so to protect our- 

 selves as to reduce danger to the smallest possible 

 dimensions. If, for instance, we discovered that 

 our enemies never ate any of us who were coloured 

 a vivid scarlet, I imagine that by degrees, through 

 a process of selection, we should develop into 

 scarlet men and women for our own protection. 

 The giants, in the first instance, would have some 

 reason for avoiding prey of this colour. Probably 

 in a past age certain of their ancestors, when men 

 were still white, would have come upon a family of 

 bright red specimens, and, having eaten, developed 

 an indigestion which brought them to an untimely 

 end. The other giants would not only eschew 

 scarlet men, but would fancy that everything that 

 resembled a scarlet man was unfit for food. And so 

 the white men would die out and the pale pink men 



