54 STKICTLY INCOG. 



have their tails sliarpenccl, in terrorem, into a prcLondcd 

 sting, to give point and verisimilitude to the deceptive 

 resemblance. More curious still, certain South American 

 butterflies of a perfectly inoffensive and edible family mimic 

 in every spot and line of colour sundry otlu^r butterflies of an 

 utterly unrelated and fundamentally dissimilar type, but of 

 so disagreeable a taste as never to be eaten by birds or 

 lizards. The origin of these curious resemblances I shall 

 endeavour to explain (after Messrs. Bates and Wallace) a 

 little farther on : for the present it is enough to observe 

 that the extraordinary resemblances thus produced have 

 often deceived the very elect, and have caused experienced 

 naturalists for a time to stick some deceptive specimen of a 

 fly among the wasps and hornets, or some masquerading 

 cricket into the midst of a cabinet full of saw-flies or 

 ichneumons. 



Let us look briefly at the other instances of protective 

 coloration in nature generally which lead up to these final 

 bizarre exemplifications of the masquerading tendency. 



Wherever all the world around is remarkably uniform 

 in colour and appearance, all the animals, birds, and insects 

 alike necessarily disguise themselves in its prevailing tint 

 to escape observation. It does not matter in the least 

 whether they are predatory or defenceless, the hunters or 

 the hmited : if they are to escape destruction or starvation, 

 as the case may be, they must assume the hue of all the 

 rest of nature about them. In the arctic snows, for 

 example, all animals, without exception, must needs be 

 snow-white. The polar bear, if he were brown or black, 

 would immediately be observed among the unvaried ice- 

 fields by his expected prey, and could never get a chance of 

 approaching his quarry unperceived at close quarters. On 

 the other hand, the arctic hare must equally be dressed in 

 a snow-white coat, or the arctic fox w^ould too readily dis- 



