MIMICBY. 313 



bir^-nesting boy, who with difficulty succeeds in making the 

 town lad see the concealed nest he is about to take ; or the 

 experienced eye of the angler which recognizes the Trout, un- 

 detected by the ordinary walker on the bank. Or again, watch 

 the rambles of the out-door collector and the closet-naturalist ; 

 or the entomologist who discovers and captures, and the other 

 entomologist who only classifies and describes. It is the old 

 remark of "Eyes" and "No Eyes."* If then we can for the 

 purpose of sport or science pit our discerning faculties against 

 the extreme power of animal disguises,! how much more must 

 that detective discrimination have been acquired by those crea- 

 tures whose very lives are so largely passed in the search, and 

 depend on the capture of these mimicking fugitives. Even the 

 obscure Coccids are preyed upon by birds. Mr. Newstead found 

 specimens in the stomach of the Blue Tit (Parus cceruleus), and 

 remarks : — " These birds must have keen eyes to distinguish 

 this species, for it is well protected both in colour and texture. 

 The central red-brown speck in the scale is the only indication 

 of its presence, and altogether it may be considered the best 

 protected of any of our British Coccida" % Again, birds learn 

 to recognise hurtful as well as advantageous objects as exemplified 

 by telegraph wires. When these were first elevated they caused 

 great mortality among birds which flew against them, but after a 

 time the wires were avoided, and that loss in avian life was 

 vastly reduced. Birds certainly acquire experience and avoid 

 dangerous food. Frank Buckland relates that a keeper at Castle 

 Forbes poisoned dead Rabbits, and " picked up as many as 

 twenty-one Magpies and Crows to one Rabbit at one time." But 

 " the cunning birds found out that it was dangerous to peck at 

 dead Rabbits, in vain therefore were they laid down ; the Crows 

 and Magpies were for a season triumphant. But the keeper 



-•' Tennyson was an acute observer of nature. He once asked Miss 

 Thackeray to notice whether the Sky-Lark did not come down sideways on 

 the wing. (W. J. Dawson, ' The Makers of Modern English,' 3rd edit. p. 182.) 



f My friend Dr. Percy Kendall, then at Barberton in the Transvaal, a 

 most enthusiastic and successful collector, in reply to my expressed wish 

 that he would still keep a sharp look-out for Phasmidce, replied: "I am 

 keenly on the look-out for them, and will in most cases back my eyes against 

 almost any kind of insect protective resemblance dodges." 



} 'Entomol. Month. Mag.,' ser. 2, vol. vi. p. 85, 



