1912.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 305 
of his own experiments Poulton says: ‘‘ Wallace had predicted that 
brilliantly colored and conspicuous insects would be refused by the 
ordinary vertebrate enemies of their class.’”” This statement, which 
was a “bull” from the very beginning (inasmuch as we cannot 
reckon as enemies of an insect those animals that refuse to eat it) 
is wrongly stated by Poulton in both of the above cases. Wallace’s 
original suggestion, as reported in Proc. Ent. Soc. London, 1867, 
p. Ixxxi, is that, “(as a rule, the brilliantly colored larve were those 
which were distasteful to birds.’ Poulton further twists this in his 
table headings to a suggestion ‘‘that brilliant and conspicuous 
larve would be refused by some at least of their enemies,” a much 
later modification of Wallace’s statement. : 
However, this later claim would be admitted without argument 
did we accept Poulton’s usage of the term enemies as including 
practically all insectivorous animals. Even if there were no other 
factors involved, the relative sizes of the larve and of various insec- 
tivorous animals in themselves establish limits to the number of 
predators upon a certain form; thus numerous large larve will be 
free from attacks of all but a small proportion of insectivorous foes. 
Very small larve, on the other hand, will be overlooked by many 
predators. That is, considerations entirely aside from coloration 
will limit the number of enemies of any given form. It is evident 
that all vertebrates cannot be enemies of the same insect; enemies 
and prey form indefinite groups that intermesh in a multitude of 
combinations. Consequently, an insect cannot be said to be pro- 
tected, because certain vertebrates more or less ignore it, when they 
perhaps have no opportunity and certainly in many cases no necessity 
for feeding on it in the wild state. © 
Poulton first tabulates the results of experiments with eighteen 
species of “undoubtedly conspicuous larve,” and concludes: “The 
first and obvious result of the first table is, with only one entirely 
antagonistic exception, the most complete demonstration of the 
truth of Wallace’s suggestion that a highly conspicuous appearance 
would be found to be accompanied by some unpleasant attribute” 
(p. 205). Upon close inspection of this table, we find there are two, 
not one, species that are not shown to be distasteful to any animal, 
namely, Deilephila euphorbie and Lasiocampa pint; eight not refused 
by anything are included because they were disregarded by birds. 
The writer has explained above why disregard cannot be accepted 
as a test at all. The inadvisability of so doing is shown by the fact 
that at least three of these eight species of larve, namely, Orgyia 
