ADJUSTMENT OF ORGANISMS TO ENVIRONMENT 429 



in many cases at least as if they serve rather to promote the 

 bewilderment of a pursuing enemy. For the alighting 

 place is usually a little off to one side of the line of flight ; 

 the flight is easily followed; so easily, in fact, by reason of 

 the flash colors, that when they suddenly disappear on the 

 alighting of their possessor, pursuit is throwm off the track. 

 Anyone may convince himself of their fitness for such 

 bewildering function by following a flock of juncos to their 

 alighting place in the fence row. 



Warning Coloration. — The few animals that everyone 

 sees moving or resting, are either able like the great dragon- 

 fly (fig. 250) to escape their enemies by reason of their speed, 

 or else are conspicuous for a purpose — possessed of some bad 

 quality , making them undesirable for food, like the crow, or of 



some offensive odor, like the carrion 

 beetle (fig. 251), or of some bad flavor, 

 like the milkweed bug (fig. 252), or of 

 some special defense, like the sting of 

 the bumble bee. It is advantageous to 

 such forms to be conspicuous. They 

 are easily recognized and are for the 

 most part let alone. Unlike the rabbit 

 w^hich runs to hide, the skunk, secure 

 in the possession of an intolerably 

 malodorous secretion, walks along in 

 the open, with his great black and white 

 tail lifted aloft, like a banner in the sky. 

 Fig 25^ The milk weed ^^ is of advantage to the whole group of 

 /aL5...):^?oiors?edind wamingly colored animals that_ their 

 ^^^^^- : , colors are few and patterns simple. 



Their enemies, which do make experi- 

 ments sometimes in youth w^hile learning, and sometimes 

 when greatly pressed by hunger, have fewer combinations 

 to learn to avoid, and both sides are saved unpleasant experi- 



