The TOOHQ HATUKAIIST: 



A Penny Weekly Magazine of Natural History. 



No. 108. DECEMBER 3rd, 1881. Vol. 8. 



PROTECTION. 



READERS must not imagine from 

 the heading of this article that 

 we are going to enter upon a discussion 

 of the questions so much talked of now. 

 a-days — free trade, fair trade, reciprocity 

 or protection. We do not even propose 

 to write at length on the protection 

 afforded to various animals by their 

 peculiarities of form, colour, marking, 

 &c. It is too large a subject for the 

 limited space at our command here. 

 Those who wish to read more fully on 

 the question must turn to the pages of 

 Darwin, Wallace, and other writers who 

 have made a speciality of it We only 

 propose to-day to refer briefly to a few 

 illustrations that are likely to come 

 under the notice of young entomologists, 

 that they may understand what is meant 

 by protection, mimicry, and other terms 

 of that kind. 



One of the commonest British moths 

 is P. bucephala, the Buff-tip. When 

 set out in the cabinet it loses its charac- 

 teristic resemblance to a broken bit of 

 birch twig, and no one who has not seen 

 the insect alive could imagine how close 

 the resemblance really is. When alive, 

 hucephala folds its wings about its body 

 so as to make it nearly round. The 



thorax is light buff in colour, as is the 

 circular patch at the tip of the wing 

 (hence the name Buff-tip) The wings 

 are streaked and marked with silvery 

 grey, and the insect is exactly like a 

 small piece of birch twig broken off at 

 each end, the buff tip and thorax being 

 like the fractured wood, while the 

 markings on the wings mimic exactly 

 the silvery bark of the birch. 



Another very common species is 

 Cilix spinula, the Goose-egg. This in- 

 sect is white, with a dark grey oval 

 patch on the centre of each wing. It 

 sits with its wings sloping like a very 

 steep house roof, and in this position is 

 so like the dropping of a bird that even 

 an experienced eye might readily pass 

 it over. Very like the same thing is 

 the larva of that rare moth Acronycia 

 alni in its earlier stages. After its last 

 moult it ceases to have this resemblance, 

 and it an interesting problem to find 

 out whether the ichneumons with which 

 it is 80 infested deposit their eggs before 

 or after this protective likeness has 

 ceased. 



Agrxopii aprilina sits on oak trunks, 

 on the leaves of which tree the larvae 

 feed, and its green ground colour with 

 black markings is so exactly like the 



