No. 605] 



ANIMAL COLORATION 



279 



it at a comparatively late date, when the relatively slight 

 distastefulness of a large number of insects of one type 

 of coloration subtended a larger angle in the conscious- 

 ness of insectivorous animals than the greater unpal- 

 atability of any single form. However, the idea that what 

 has been considered mimicry is too common, and that in 

 general the most effectively protected types should be the 

 nuclei of the Miillerian combinations, is certainly not 

 wholly unreasonable. 



One of the chief reasons for believing in the existence 

 of warning colors, and particularly of common warning 

 colors, is the fact that some families of insects have slight 

 range of color and pattern compared with others. 

 Mayer*^ found that "the 200 species of Papilio in South 

 America display 36 distinct colors, while the 450 species 

 of Danaoid Heliconida? exhibit only 15, ' ' and that ' ' there is 

 no lack of individual variability among the species of the 

 latter, yet as a whole they vary but little from the two 

 great types of color-pattern represented by Melincea and 

 Ithomia." To explain these facts he felt obliged to resort 

 to Miiller's hypothesis, but if instead of thinking of Itho- 

 miinsB and PapilionidsB one considers Holocentridse and 

 LabridaB, an alternative solution appears. The squirrel 

 fishes seem to be of red or reddish coloration the world 

 over, but their habits are equally invariable, while the 

 Labrids ' diversity of coloring is no greater than that pre- 

 vailing in the varied environments in which they live. 



Such facts indicate the necessity of making detailed 

 studies of the coloration of tropical Lepidoptera and cor- 

 relating the facts discovered with the insects' distribution 

 and behavior. When this is done there is reason to sup- 

 pose that combinations of the same colors will be found 

 upon animals of the same habit, which would have been 

 as they are in many species, if any or all the others which 

 display the same combinations had never existed. That is 

 to say, it is probable that much that has masqueraded 

 as Mullerian mimicry is nothing but the result of con- 



*5 Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool. JIarv. Coll, Feb., 18&7, p. 225. 



