COLORS AND MARKINGS OF ANIMALS 291 



been proved, an ill-tasting fluid which makes it a very 

 disagreeable mouthful for them. Now it is apparently so 

 brightly colored that the birds generally recognize it be- 

 fore actually nipping it, and thus it often escapes with its 

 life — for to be nipped is death to a butterfls-. Other con- 

 spicuously marked butterflies and insects and some other 

 forms, in particular a famous little blue and red frog of Nic- 

 aragua, are thought to be so marked for a similar reason. 

 They are easily recognized as animals having a bad taste 

 and so are generally let alone. Accordingly naturalists 

 believe that conspicuous color and markings often adver- 

 tise some disagreeable quality or some special means of 

 defense in the animal bearing them and thus ward off its 

 enemies. 



Mimicry. — Certain other insects derive strange advan- 

 tage from the inedibleness of the warningly colored bad- 

 tasting kinds. There is, for example, another kind of 

 butterfly called the viceroy (fig. 229), which looks so 

 much like the monarch (although not nearly related to it), 

 that it requires careful examination to distinguish the two 

 kinds. But the viceroy is not inedible. And yet it, too, 

 escapes very largely the attacks of birds because they 

 mistake it for the other. By mimicking in color and pat- 

 tern the appearance of the inedible monarch it gains a 

 great advantage. Numerous other examples of protective 

 mimicry are known among butterflies, especially tropical 

 ones. 



Other uses of color and marking not yet understood. 

 Protective resemblance and mimicry and warning col- 

 oration do not account for the color-markings of all ani- 

 mals, although it is probably true that the most wide- 

 spread use of color in the animal kingdom is for protec- 

 tive resemblance. For e.xample, the conspicuous white 

 spot on the rabbit's tail is thought by some naturalists to 

 be a means whereby it can be recognized by others of its 



