CHAPTER X 
BIONOMIC NOTES, CHIEFLY ON BUTTERFLIES 1 
§ 1, Scents—§ 2, Coloured Juices—§ 3, Tenacity of Life—§ 4, Mutilations by Foes— 
§ 5, Experiments on Palatability—§ 6, Successful Mimicry—§ 7, Peculiarities of 
Flight—§ 8, Heliotropism — § 9, List and Shadow — § 10, Inverted Attitude— 
§ 11, Attitudes at Rest—§ 12, Some Cosmopolitan Lepidoptera—§ 13, Seasonal 
Forms—§ 14, Selection of Coloured Resting Places. 
Introductory. 
When travelling in a country new to him it is almost inevitable that 
an entomologist’s time should be chiefly taken up with searching for 
insects and securing specimens; his temptation is to become a mere 
collector, his chief ambition to discover species new to science. 
Further, such observations of more scientific value as he may find 
time to make are but too apt to be isolated, imperfect and incon¬ 
clusive. Yet something may be done even during a flying visit, and a 
subsequent judicious arrangement of the notes made at the time may 
provide useful material for further work by the same naturalist, or 
by a more capable or more fortunately circumstanced observer 
following his footsteps. 
But it may be objected to such a book as this, that it is made up 
of trivial details, that it is loaded with wearisome repetitions, that 
everybody has long been familiar with the facts brought forward—in 
short, that it is but a laborious “ demonstration of the obvious.” 2 So 
be it. For the sake of argument these propositions might all be 
admitted, and yet the time spent in writing the work, and even the 
space occupied by it upon the bookshelf, be amply justified. 
The immortal work of Lyell, of Darwin, and of Wallace was 
largely built upon seeming trivialities, on facts many of which were 
1 This chapter is based upon two papers read before the Entomological Society of 
London, viz.: “ Some Rest-Attitudes of Butterflies,” Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond 1906, 
pp. 99-118; and “ Bionomic Notes on Butterflies,” ibid., 1909, pp. 607-673. The term 
“Bionomics” is due to Sir Edwin Ray Lankester, K.C.B., F.R.S., and may be 
shortly defined as that section of Biology which deals with the laws regulating the 
mutual relations of living organisms. 
2 W. Bateson, F.R.S., Report of British Association , 1904, p. 577. 
