360 ANIMAL STUDIES 



cussed the advantage to the animal lies in the resemblance 

 between the animals and their surroundings, in the incon- 

 spicuousness and concealment afforded by the coloration. 

 But there is another interesting phase of advantageous 

 coloration in which the advantage derived is in render- 

 ing the animals as conspicuous and as readily recogniz- 

 able as possible. While many animals are very inconspicu- 

 ously colored, or are manifestly colored so as to resemble 

 their surroundings, generally or specifically, many other 

 animals are very brightly and conspicuously colored and 

 patterned. If we are struck by the numerous cases of imi- 

 tative coloring among insects, we must be no less impressed 

 by the many cases of bizarre and conspicuous coloration 

 among them. 



Many animals, as we well know, possess special and 

 effective weapons of defense, as the poison-fangs of the 

 venomous snakes and the stings of bees and wasps. Other 

 animals, and with these cases most of us are not so well 

 acquainted, possess a means of defense, or rather safety, in 

 being inedible that is, in possessing some acrid or ill- 

 tasting substance in the body which renders them unpala- 

 table to predaceous animals. Many caterpillars have been 

 found, by observation in Nature and by experiment, to be 

 distasteful to insectivorous birds. Now, it is obvious that 

 it would be a great advantage to these caterpillars if they 

 could be readily recognized by birds, for a severe stroke by 

 a bird's bill is about as fatal to a caterpillar as being wholly 

 eaten. Its soft, distended body suffers mortal hurt if cut 

 or bitten by the bird's beak. This advantage of being 

 readily recognizable is possessed by many if not all ill- 

 tasting caterpillars by being brilliantly and conspicuously 

 colored and marked. Such colors and markings are called 

 warning colors. They are intended to inform birds of the 

 fact that the caterpillar displaying them is an ill-tasting 

 insect, a caterpillar to be let alone. The conspicuously 

 black-and-yellow banded larva (Fig. 147, I) of the common 



