'540 A. Alcock — Warning Colours. [No. 3, 



greedily, and crunches with every sign of relish, the common bright- 

 green and dull-brown grasshoppers found in Calcutta ; and one of the 

 few displays of real ill-temper of which he has been guilty was occa- 

 sioned by my attempting to pick up a large grasshopper that had 

 dropped from his mouth. 



Recently I offered him a specimen of the glaring-coloured and evil- 

 smelling Autarches miliaria (Linn. J which, as soon as he smelt it, he re- 

 fused in a most comical way, but without any show of anger or violent 

 distrust. 



(It may be re-called to memory that, in life, Autarches miliaris has 

 the abdomen broadly cross-striped in .alternate black and scarlet, and 

 the forewings black with large canary-yellow spots, and also that it 

 secretes a most peculiarly pungent-smelling frothy fluid.) 



A little after the first refusal I again forced the insect upon him, 

 when he stood up on his hindlegs and violently struck it out of my 

 hand, in exactly the same way as — after a single experience of their 

 nature- — he is accustomed to treat the offer of a burning cigar-end or a 

 lighted match. 



Whenever now I show him this grasshopper (Autarches miliaris), he 

 first endeavours to move off; but if he is compelled to face it, he rises 

 and strikes one's hand such a hearty cuff that" the insect is knocked 

 out of one's grasp. 



i The bear also has certain amount of objection to a very large spiny- 

 legged species of Acridium and to a species of JEuprepocnemis nr. robusta 

 Serv. with spiny legs, if these are offered to him alive and with their legs 

 intact. In these cases the dislike is not to the insect, but only to its hard 

 spiny legs, and it is not accompanied by any gesture of fear or appre- 

 hension — for it is these emotions, rather, perhaps, than blind anger, that 

 the bear's cuff seems to be meant to express. 



I may mention that the bear lives, as far as is possible, in a state 

 of nature : it is never confined, and is only chained up when nobody can 

 be spared to watch it. 



I offer this note as a simple record of fact. So far as it goes it 

 appears to support the almost universally accepted though now by no 

 means unquestioned beliefs (1) that when an insect has been found by 

 experience to be unpleasant to (taste and) smell it has only to be seen 

 to be avoided: and (2) that any conspicuous markings that lead to the 

 immediate recognition of such an insect by eyesight and at a distance 

 are likely to be of such vital benefit to the insect as to be acted on by 

 Natural Selection. 



