THE BUNTINGS 197 



of the principle of protective coloration. Since, however, this cannot 

 be, neither can the other, and the bird remains, if anything, still more 

 distinguished as, perhaps, the only example of a creature, intensely 

 conspicuous, which has not been so claimed. A refuge, however, 

 lies open for it in the resemblance alluded to, to the strength of 

 which Seebohm has given the most explicit testimony, since, speaking 

 not for himself, alone, but in the name of his fellow-traveller also, 

 he says : " We could almost fancy that a flock of black butterflies 

 were dancing before us." 1 If the trained ornithological eye with 

 reason behind it could be thus " almost " deceived, we may suppose, 

 without violence, that a bird's would be entirely, and, since it is 

 extremely doubtful if any of the Falconidce would strike at a butterfly, 2 

 it follows that AVC have, in the snow-bunting, another, and very 

 remarkable, instance of what is called "mimicry" in nature. That, 

 in spite of the above-quoted passage, this should have been, hitherto, 

 so far as I am aware, overlooked, seems somewhat remarkable but 

 truth has often to wait. 3 



To the more ordinary points of view from which the buntings, 

 like other families of birds, are to be considered, there may be added 

 that of commensalism, a phenomenon which, as it is by no means a 

 common one, should, for that reason, be all the more carefully noted, 

 even when such examples of it as may seem to occur represent only 

 its simple perhaps hardly recognisable beginnings. According to 

 Nauniann, 4 who, in each instance, apparently, speaks from personal 

 observation, the Emberizince present us with two such examples. 

 First there is the Lapland-bunting, which, as he tells us, affects the 

 society of many birds, but, in a more particular degree, that of larks 



1 History of British Birds, ii. p. 127. 



2 It has been pointed out to me that some of the smaller ones do strike at beetles, and 

 might, therefore, conceivably, strike at butterflies also. It is probable, however, that the size 

 of the impostors would prove a sufficient deterrent in these cases, and thus a seeming objection 

 helps to support the theory just in the way that one is accustomed to. 



3 Though it was, I believe, unclaimed by him, the telat of this discovery ought certainly to 

 rest with the ornithologist by whom the take off was first noted ; and most willingly do 

 I resign it to his fame. 



4 Naturgeschichte der Vogel Mitteleuropas, vol. iii. 



