EFFECTS OF LOCALITY ON COLOUR. 255 



we cannot yet understand, but whose effects are every- 

 where to be seen when carefully searched for. 



Although the careful experiments of Sir John Lubbock 

 have shown that insects can distinguish colours — as 

 might have been inferred from the brilliant colours of 

 the flowers which are such an attraction to them — yet 

 we can hardly believe that their appreciation and love 

 of distinctive colours is so refined as to guide and regu- 

 late their most powerful instinct — that of reproduction. 

 We are therefore led to seek some other cause for the 

 varied colours that prevail among insects ; and as this 

 variety is most conspicuous among butterflies—a group 

 perhaps better known than any other — it ofiers the best 

 means of studying the subject. The variety of colour 

 and marking among these insects is something marvellous. 

 There are probably about ten thousand difi'erent kinds of 

 butterflies now known, and about half of these are so 

 distinct in colour and marking that they can be readily 

 distinguished by this means alone. Almost every con- 

 ceivable tint and pattern is represented, and the hues 

 are often of such intense brilliance and purity as can be 

 equalled by neither birds nor flowers. 



Any help to a comprehension of the causes which 

 may have concurred in bringing about so much diversity 

 and beauty must be of value ; and this is my excuse 

 for laying before you the more important cases I have 

 met with of a connection between colour and locality. 



The influence of Locality on Colour in Butterflies 

 and Birds, — Our first example is from tropical Africa, 

 where we find two unrelated groups of butterflies 

 belonging to two very distinct families (Nymphalidse 

 and Papilionidae) characterized by a prevailing blue- 



