AVARXIXG COLORATION AXD MIMICRY 233 



The Skunk as illustrating Warning Coloration. 



While staying a few days, in July 1887, at the Summit 

 Hotel on the Central Pacific Railway, I strolled out one evening 

 after dinner, and on the road, not fifty yards from the house, 

 I saw a pretty little white and black animal with a bushy tail 

 coming towards me. As it came on at a slow pace and with- 

 out any fear, although it evidently saw me, I thought at first 

 that it must be some tame creature, when it suddenly occurred 

 to me that it was a skunk. It came on till within five or six 

 yards of me, then quietly climbed over a dwarf wall and dis- 

 appeared under a small outhouse, in search of chickens, as the 

 landlord afterwards told me. This animal possesses, as is well 

 known, a most offensive secretion, which it has the power of 

 ejecting over its enemies, and which effectually protects it 

 from attack. The odour of this substance is so penetrating 

 that it taints, and renders useless, everything it touches, 

 or in its vicinity. Provisions near it become uneatable, and 

 clothes saturated with it will retain the smell for several 

 weeks, even though they are repeatedly washed and dried. 

 A drop of the liquid in the eyes will cause blindness, and 

 Indians are said not unfrequently to lose their sight from this 

 cause. Owing to this remarkable power of offence the skunk 

 is rarely attacked by other animals, and its black and white 

 fur, and the bushy white tail carried erect when disturbed, 

 form the danger-signals by which it is easily distinguished in 

 the twilight or moonlight from unprotected animals. Its 

 consciousness that it needs only to be seen to be avoided gives 

 it that slowness of motion and fearlessness of aspect which 

 are, as we shall see, characteristic of most creatures so pro- 

 tected. 



Warning Colours among Insects. 



It is among insects that warning colours are best developed, 

 and most abundant. We all know how well marked and 

 conspicuous are the colours and forms of the stinging wasps 

 and bees, no one of which in any part of the world is known 

 to be protectively coloured like the majority of defenceless 

 insects. Most of the great tribe of Malacoderms among 

 beetles are distasteful to insect-eatino- animals. Our red and 



