ANIMAL COLORATION 



I. General Protective Resemblance. — Many animals harmonize 

 with their surroundings so as to be comparatively inconspicuous, 

 and thus escape, to some extent, the attacks of their enemies. 

 The upper part of the plate (after Keeble and Gamble) illustrates 

 this in the case of the /4isop Prawn {Hippolyte varians), which 

 assimilates in colour with the green, red, or brown sea-weed in 

 its neighbourhood. At night it assumes the blue colour shown 

 on the right, but the meaning of this is doubtful. 



II. Warning Coloration. — Forms possessed of properties 

 untitling them for food are often very conspicuous, exhibiting 

 crude schemes of colour which do not harmonize with the sur- 

 roundings. Examples are the South African butterflies, la, 2b, 3c, 

 (species of Danais) ; 5, the Black- veined Brown {Anosia erippus) 

 of North America ; 6, the Magpie Moth (Abraxas grossulariata) 

 in its three stages of life. 



III. Mimicry. — This term is appHed to cases where edible 

 or innocuous forms have come to resemble ("mimic") species 

 presenting warning characters. The remarkable instance figured 

 (after Trimen) is that of a South African Swallow-tail (Papilio 

 merope) in which the male (4) is protectively coloured, while the 

 females are totally different in appearance, and present no less 

 than three different forms (i, 2, 3) which mimic three distinct 

 species of warningly-coloured butterfly (la, 2b, 3c) livmg in the 

 same area. 



