COLOR IN ANIMALS 131 



and injured, even if finally rejected without being eaten. 

 Their conspicuous color is readily remembered, and, as it is 

 associated in the minds of their enemies with their dis- 

 agreeable character, it must serve to save many from injury 

 or destruction. The coloration, therefore, is properly called 

 warning coloration. 



Often such warning coloration is associated with peculiar 

 shape or distinctive habits which make the insect still more 

 easy to recognize. The bees, wasps, yellow-jackets, and hor- 

 nets have a peculiar buzzing flight, and when standing, they 

 commonly teeter the abdomen up and down in a way that 

 always suggests to us their excitable disposition. Apparently 

 these habits produce much the same effect upon their bird, 

 lizard, and frog enemies that they do upon us. The slender 

 waist of the Hymenoptera is also a conspicuous feature. 



As further examples of warning coloration we might call 

 attention to the Hemiptera, the bugs, many of which have a 

 very disagreeable taste and equally disagreeable odor. These 

 insects are frequently conspicuously colored, and they gener- 

 ally have a very characteristic and readily recognized body 

 form (Plate 69, A). Many of the beetles are very tough and 

 some are disagreeable in flavor; accordingly we find many 

 conspicuously colored beetles. Perhaps the best example is 

 the common Colorado potato-beetle, the adult of which is con- 

 spicuously marked with longitudinal stripes and whose larva 

 is also bright-colored and conspicuously spotted (Plate 69, C). 

 Both the adults and the larvae are unpalatable to birds, lizards, 

 frogs, and toads. Other examples among the beetles are the 

 goldenrod-beetle and the lady-beetles, commonly miscalled 

 ladybugs (Plate 69, ^). Many conspicuously colored butter- 

 flies are inedible ; for example, the common yellow and white 



