CONSPICUOUS COLOUR 33 
away—it would fall an easy victim to any bird. 
In London, where the Sparrows have had 
little experience of White Butterflies, I have 
on several occasions (four) seen Sparrows 
(P. domesticus) take them on the wing, but 
always, after pecking them and killing them, 
they have left them. Apparently they are 
relatively unpalatable. 
The Red Admiral Butterfly (Pyrameis 
Atalanta) spends many hours of the day, 
with outstretched wings, on flowers: flat 
flowers are especially chosen ; here it is always 
a conspicuous object, no matter how viewed. 
It depends for its safety on quickness of sight 
and rapidity of flight. When sleeping, it 
closes its wings, displaying the under surfaces 
only, which are not conspicuously coloured ; 
and it chooses to rest among surroundings 
which render it inconspicuous—among dead 
leaves or on the barks of trees, &. If 
disturbed whilst thus resting, it does not fly 
away, but relies for escape entirely on its pro- 
tective colouring, and the simulation of an 
inanimate object. 
These habits associated in the same insect, 
with exposure of the bright upper surfaces 
of the wings on the one hand, and with the 
dull under surfaces on the other, indicate, 
G 
