May, 1920 
FOREST AND STREAM 
251 
object they try so hard to imitate. 
All the above trade on the supposed 
possession of a sting they do not actually 
possess. Another class of mimics is that 
which mimics something with a disagree- 
able taste. Many entomologists are agreed 
that for some reason or other, either by 
reason of their .toughness or the scent 
glands they carry, certain families of 
butterflies are obnoxious to eat. Also 
that other kinds of quite different fam- 
ilies, and even moths, not obnoxious to 
the taste, obtain immunity from attack 
by very close resemblance in coloration 
and shape to the disagreeable kinds. 
Some of these mimics are so like that it 
requires a careful scrutiny of their struc- 
ture to see how they differ. In most cases 
the males follow the general coloration of 
the family whilst the females alone 
mimic. 
A well known instance of this mimicry 
occurs in the Genera of Limnas and 
Hypolimnas. The former is the mim- 
icked and the latter the mimic. Limnas 
includes a species, a very common butter- 
fly, which is peculiar in the possession of 
a number of well marked varieties, varie- 
ties so different from the type that they 
might quite well be taken for a number 
of different butterflies. The males and 
females of each variety are marked al- 
most exactly alike, except for an extra 
spot and a gland in the male. In the 
genus Hypolimnas there is a species the 
female of which is marked almost exactly 
the same as Limnas and this runs to 
varieties closely following the different 
variations of the latter. The male on 
the other hand is entirely different; not 
only might it be mistaken for a different 
butterfly, but one would hesitate to put 
it in the same group. 
Another gentle bluffer is the beetle 
which shams death. Some creatures, for 
instance, the lizard, will not touch dead 
insects. Lizards which live in one’s house 
in the tropics often become very tame. 
I have caught flies for such lizards but 
if one offers them a dead fly they will 
not touch it, unless one can make them 
believe it is alive by rolling it at them. 
If they catch hold of it whilst still in mo- 
tion they will eat it, but if it stops be- 
fore they have seized it they will draw 
back, inspect it carefully for a sign of 
life and then leave it. So presumably 
the art of shamming death is of value 
to the beetle. The larger species of the 
weevil family are adepts in this art. If 
one tries to grab one of these weevils on 
a tree it draws in its limbs and drops 
like a plummet to the ground. I have 
often searched for one which has 
dropped in this way for hours and not 
been able to find it, although I knew that 
it was lying motionless somewhere close 
by. I can generally defeat them now 
as I do not try to grab them but sud- 
denly put out my hand beneath them 
and let them drop into the open palm. 
When we come to consider how most 
of these insects benefit by their bluff we 
are more or less in the dark ; we can only 
suppose that some enemy, which would 
otherwise devour them, is deterred from 
so doing by the bluff characters, but the 
theory rests more on supposition than 
»ctual p * w hy the preyer, whose 
lifelong and almost only interest is to 
find its prey, has never unmasked the 
bluff is obscure. 
Some butterflies are supposed to mimic 
a form which has become extinct. In 
many cases the potential preyer, what- 
ever it may be, can never have seen the 
allied and noxuous form. What mouse 
in England, for instance, or hedge hog, 
or whatever it is that should eat the 
Devil’s coach-horse, can ever have seen 
the tropical stinging kinds Avoidance 
of certain creatures and classes is to the 
preyer a matter of instinct, or memory 
inherited from past ages, just as the 
fear of all snakes is almost instinctive 
to man and the fear of the smell of a 
lion is instinctive to a horse. When this 
instinct first became heriditary the 
bluffer may have been very different, it 
may then have actually possessed a sting, 
or, if a mimic, it may have borne an 
even greater resemblance to the object 
mimicked. 
If an individual bird made the discov- 
ery that the hover-fly was good eating 
and non-stinging presumably its progeny 
would still avoid them through instinct. 
Courtesy of American Museum of Natural History 
American “spreading adder,” a harmless 
bluffer 
If we admit the strength of this in- 
stinct a curious state of things arises. 
Granted that a hover-fly is instinctive 
taboo to the would-be-preyer, these prey- 
ers pass from age to age, knowing that 
they must not touch them. They do not 
question their instinct — the taboo is more 
blind and unreasoning than that of the 
black man for certain animals. Now all 
wasps may become extinct, and the 
hover-fly may by imperceptible degrees 
change its coloration and characteristics. 
Yet it still remains immune for all time 
until some new species of preyer arises 
which has never known the hover-fly 
taboo. Unquestioned obedience to a 
faulty instinct may be the answer to 
some of the riddles which puzzle us. 
WINTERING SNIPE AND RAINFALL 
E ACH year, on Christmas day, or a 
date as near it as possible, numer- 
ous bird-students all over the coun- 
try compete as to the number of species 
and individuals of birds they can find 
afield in their different localities. Their 
many reports are published in the suc- 
ceeding (February) number of Bird Lore 
where they afford interesting comparison. 
It is not a bad “sport.” 
December 28, 1919, while making such 
a “census,” the writer flushed a Wilson’s 
snipe from the wooded bushy head of a 
creek on the south shore of Long Island, 
N. Y. It was the first one he had ever 
met with on Long Island at that season. 
On the succeeding January 17 (1920) 
he revisited the spot to determine 
whether the bird was really wintering 
or had gone south late, after its com- 
panions. The weather had been very 
cold, and though the head of the creek 
was still open, two or three inches of 
fresh snowfall covered its banks. Never- 
theless a snipe darted off like a shadow 
through the trees with characteristic 
“scape” as it disappeared, in all prob- 
ability that same bird. 
Reference to comparable census re- 
ports for the past fifteen years, 1905 to 
1919, shows that a snipe ( Gallinago ) 
was found on Long Island at Christmas 
time in six of the fifteen reports, and 
two individuals in two of those six. Off- 
hand one would say from such a showing 
that the bird wintered in mild years. 
But if a snipe took the past winter for a 
mild one he was in grave error! Either 
the snipe is a fool or there was some 
other controlling factor. 
Such reflections led to a reference to 
the precipitation statistics of the U. S. 
Weather Bureau for New York City. 
As the presence of snipe December, 1919, 
appeared to be correlated with an abund- 
ance earlier in the season, figures for the 
last half of the year (July to December 
inclusive) were compared. Snipe were 
absent four years with total six-months 
precipitation 13.18 to 15.52; present 
three years (including both of those with 
two individuals), total, 25.01 to 34.20; 
present three years out of eight, total, 
17.46 to 24.44. Evidently heavy precipi- 
tation the last half of the year is favor- 
able (and light precipitation unfavor- 
able) to the presence of snipe on Long 
Island at its close. 
Now was there anything in rainfall to 
help explain the varying presence or ab- 
sence when its total amount was inter- 
mediate? In 1907, with highest precipi- 
tation and no snipe (24.44) rain was 
heavy in September, light in August and 
October. In 1908 and 1909, with the 
lightest precipitation and snipe (17.46 
and 19.90) the rain was heavy in August. 
In 1917, with snipe, (precipitation 20.55) 
it was heavy in October. The only two 
years with two snipe each recorded are 
the two with by far the heaviest October 
rainfall. The rainfall was over five 
inches in either August or October, in 
eight of the fifteen years, and it is in six 
of those eight that snipe were present! 
Their absence in the other two of the 
eight may reasonably be supposed to 
have been due to some other factor than 
lack of rain, but what comes first to 
mind is that the single individual snipe 
that should have been recorded would 
likely be “missed” as often as that by 
the census takers. It seems that heavy 
precipitation in August or October 
(which are, by the way, the critical 
months of its southward movement 
there) is most favorable for the snipe's 
lingering on Long Island into the winter. 
J. T. NiCHOl's New York. 
