80 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ONTARIO. 



WARNING COLORS, PROTECTIVE MIMICRY AND PROTECTIVE 



COLORATION.* 



By F. M. Webster, Wooster, Ohio. 



In " Memoires de la Societe Zoologique de France," Professor Felix Plateau has 

 recently given the results of some experiments carried on by himself, to determine 

 whether, as has often been stated, the Magpie moth is really an example of what is 

 termed "warning color." In order to solve the pi-oblem, the Professor ate several of 

 the caterpillars, and found them to possess something of the flavor of almonds, and not 

 unpleasant to him, but rather the reverse. Unfortunately, this experiment only proves 

 that as against a person to whom the flavor of almonds is not distasteful, the larvae of 

 the Magpie moth are not warningly colored, but the real question regarding protective 

 coloration, as against bird enemies, does not appear to be nearer a solution than it was 

 before. Men do not feed upon the larvae of this moth, or the moth itself, nor have we 

 good reasons to suspect that they have ever done so, and there is no reason why these 

 caterpillars should be, to them, distasteful, as no material protection would in any case 

 result. The two following incidents will illustrate my point. 



Species belonging to the genus Danais are, rarely, if ever, to any extent attacked by 

 birds, and in the tropics even monkeys are said to reject them. In the United States, 



Danais archippus, (see Fig. 27, page 

 31), is mimicked by Limenitis di- 

 sippus, (Fig. 80), and in other parts 

 of the world other species of the for- 

 mer genus are mimicked by still other 

 species of butterflies, some very inter- 

 esting illustrations being given by 

 Mr. Roland Trimen in his paper on 

 " Some Remarkable Mimetic An- 

 alogies among South African Butter- 

 flies."! In the United States, D. 

 archippus breeds in the north, and in 

 autumn migrates in immense swarms 

 to the south, where it hibernates 

 through the winter. In " Insect Life," it is stated^ that these butterflies are sometimes 

 attacked in their winter quarters, and great numbers of them eaten, by a mouse belong- 

 ing to the genus Onychomys ; one of the grasshopper and scorpion mice. On an island 

 in Aransas Bay, on the gulf coast of Texas, the remains of at least twenty-seven individ- 

 uals were found in one place by Mr. Attwater, thus showing that the species is not dis- 

 tasteful to this mouse, but by no mean disproving that to other animals, and to birds, it 

 is distasteful, and for this reason mimicked by other species of butterflies. This mouse 

 is not a persistent and perpetual enemy, and unrestrained does not threaten the exter- 

 mination of the species, and protection from it has never become necessary, and is not 

 now essential. The Harlequin cabbage bug, Murgantia histrionica, (Fig. 81), is a con- 

 spicuously colored, tropical species, that has made its way northward 

 as far as Lat. 40° 48', even the egg being white banded with black. 

 Not only does the species feed during its entire life, in all stages of 

 development, in the most exposed positions, but the eggs are placed in 

 clusters equally exposed, every habit, in fact, indicating a total disregard 

 of the presence of natural enemies of any description, thereby implying, 

 though not proving that it is distasteful if not warningly colored. Some time since I had 



*Read before Section F, Zoology, of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, at the 

 Buffalo, N.Y., meeting, August 25th, 1896. 



+Linn. Soc. Trans. "Vol. XXVI., pp. 497, ct seq. 

 JVol. V., p. 270. 



