CHAPTER XVII 

 COLOR AND PATTERN AND THEIR USES 



CONSPICUOUS characteristic of the insect 

 body is its color-pattern. The painted butter- 

 flies, the great moths, the burnished beetles, 

 the flashing dragon-flies, the green katyd'ds 

 and brown locusts, all attract attention first 

 by the variety or intensity of their colors 

 and the arrangement of these colors in simple 

 or intricate symmetry of pattern. Even the 

 small and, at casual glance, obscure and 

 monochrome insects reveal on careful ex- 

 amination a large degree of color development 

 and an ofttimes amazing intricacy and beauty of pattern. So uniformly 

 well developed is color-pattern among insects that no thoughtful collector or 

 observer of these animals escapes the self -put question, What special cause 

 is it that results in such a high degree of specialization of color and its 

 arrangement throughout the insect class? and if he be an observer who 

 has taken seriously the teachings of Darwin and the utilitarian school of 

 naturalists, his question becomes couched in the form, What is the use to 

 the insects of all this color and pattern? 



For the attitude of any modern student of Nature, confronted by such 

 a phenomenon, is that of the seeker for the significance of the phenomenon. 

 And the key to significance in such a case is to be sought in utility. The 

 usefulness of color in animate Nature as an inspirer and satisfier of our 

 own aesthetic needs and capacities, or of color-patterns as means whereby 

 we may distinguish and recognize various sorts of animals and plants, is a 

 usefulness which may be answer enough to the passing poet on the one hand, 

 and the old-line Linnean systematist on the other, but is, of course, no answer 

 to science. Science demands a usefulness to the color-bearing organisms 

 themselves; and a usefulness large and serious enough to be the sufficient 

 cause for so highly specialized and amazing a development. 



The explanations of some of the color phenomena of insects are obvious; 

 some uses we recognize quickly as certain, some as probable, some as possible. 



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