OBSERVATIONS ON BUTTERFLIES ¢ HORNETS. 835 
trunk, was, for some time, kept at bay by repeated quick, power- 
ful flaps of the large painted wings; but, at last, continuing to 
advance, open-jawed, the butterfly decamped. 
(2) A hornet about to settle on the spot where a Red Admiral 
sat in possession was driven away by the latter thus flapping its 
wings. 
(8) Another hornet, or possibly this same one, flying up 
again, puts this same butterfly to flight. 
It is by flapping their wings in this manner that these butter- 
flies drive off flies and bluebottles that come near them whilst 
they thus feed on the tree’s sap, and though a hornet, as might 
be expected, is able, at last, to impress her personality upon 
them so as to put them to flight, it seems pretty plain that they 
do not see in her anything very terrific or dangerous—in other 
words, her “‘ warning coloration ’’ is apparently lost upon them. 
But this is not strange, since, unless habitually preyed upon by 
hornets, butterflies would not have learnt to fear them, and even 
so, how should any individual learn, except by seeing the fate of 
his fellows ?—for if once seized he would be killed,* and if missed 
would probably hardly take alarm. Birds, indeed, might learn 
by individual experience, yet how many—except some few species 
which may do so habitually—ever attack a wasp or hornet? Is 
their fear to do so, then, instinctive? But even say that it is, 
how can such instinctive fear have been acquired except as the 
inherited offspring of individual experience ? and since every 
new course or habit must demand some corresponding new move- 
ment—or change—in the brain, would not this, transmitted, 
through inheritance, be an acquired character? There appear 
to be difficulties in the practical application of the warning 
coloration theory which do not apply to that of protective 
resemblance, including what is called mimicry. Again, birds 
‘appear to avoid bees, the colours of many of which are not of the 
warning kind, as much as they do wasps, nor is the one class 
less mimicked than the other. There are many brown bee-like 
flies. 
T had, also, to-day, repeated object-lessons in the pugnacity 
of these hornets, no two, as remarked, ever feeding in the same 
place, but the newcomer either driving the first-established one 
See, however, p. 337. 
