THEORIES OF MIMICRY 



559 



such species as have, in their background, colors that these patterns 

 match, to the eyes of certain other animals whose sight they need to 

 avoid. They are found on skunks, civets, badgers, teledus, ratels, for 

 instance, and the animal life devoured by these carnivores is said to 

 consist largely of worms, insects and mice, most of which are pre- 

 sumably either caught on the surface or dug out of the turf, i. e., pro- 

 cured on a lower level than the predator's head. Such of this list of 



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Fig. 8. Fig. 9. 



Fig. 8 shows that a monochrome figure will continue distinguishable, because 

 of its continuity of color, even when largely eclipsed by interposed forms. 



Fig. 9 shows how much less distinguishable an animal would be in the same 

 situation if his head, feet and tail were light colored. 



Fig. 10. Fig. 11 



In Fig. 10 we see simply the skunk's reproduction of the other light-colored details 

 which partly form the animal's background, and partly mask his form, so that both 

 his darks and his lights tend, as it were, to dissolve their partnership and ally them- 

 selves to their counterparts in the surroundings. 



Fig. 11. Here we see a skunk whose patterns are experiencing exactly the same 

 over-darkening as that of the right-hand butterfly in Fig. 6. This sketch and that 

 of the butterfly illustrate one of the greatest uses of pattern in forest species in 

 combatting the silhouetting propensity universal to animals observed in a dim forest 

 illumination against lighter regions beyond them. 



victims as can see would certainly have much more chance to escape, 

 were not what would be a dark-looming predator's head converted, by 

 its white sky-counterfeiting, into a deceptive imitation of mere sky. 

 ISTow let us see whether such stench-gland bearers as hunt in a bolder 

 way wear the white " badges." We find at once that minks, martens 

 and most weasels, though well-armed with the same glands, have no top- 

 white, and, instead of hunting along the earth's surface or putting 



