June, 1897.J 
Webster: On Protective Mimicry. 
71 
with its body resting upon the style, the four-parted stigma projecting 
beyond the tip of the abdomen, appearing like a part thereof, and when 
the sun appears the two petals that were above the moth soon wilt and 
fall down over the roof-like wings, concealing the hinder portion, leav¬ 
ing the yellow part exposed as a part of the blossom, and so effectually 
is the moih concealed in this way during the day, that only a trained 
eye can detect its presence, and even then with extreme difficulty. 
Some time after Dr. Kellicott had published his observations, and be¬ 
fore I knew of them, I find, from looking over some old note books where 
I had recorded observations made in Illinois, that a specimen of this 
moth was taken by myself under much the same circumstances, except 
in this case the pink color was exposed from under a reddening, discol¬ 
ored leaf of Evening Primrose, in such a manner that the yellow 
was concealed and the deception was so marked that I made a record 
of it at the time. I still have the moth in my possession, and I have 
never taken a specimen except on this plant, and concealed in the 
manner indicated by the observations of Dr. Kellicott and myself. 
In “A Naturalist in the Transvaal,” pp. 41, 42, Mr. W. L. Distant 
calls attention to the fact that while a butterfly, Hamanumida dczdalus, 
in Senegambia, Calabar and the Cameroons, according to report, always 
settles with the wings vertically closed, and which so closely resemble 
the soil of the district, that it can with difficulty be seen, the color 
varies with the soil in different localities, yet in the Transvaal, and 
Natal, he was never able to observe it to rest except with horizontally- 
expanded wings, by which its protection was almost equally insured, by 
the assimulative color of the same to the rocks and paths on which it 
was usually found. Here we have an insect breaking away, or at any 
rate differing radically from a prevailing habit, where such habit would 
tend to expose it to natural enemies, and following that habit where it 
derives protection therefrom.* 
In the case of Podosesia syringes, which when in flight the abdomen 
has almost the exact position of Polistes annularis , when it is at rest, 
the posterior segments are bent downward and kept in motion, and if 
* While quite foreign to this particular point, it is interesting to note the dif¬ 
ference in the action of our domestic sheep, in different parts of the country, on the 
appearance of sudden danger, like a wolf or dog. In the eastern and central-western 
states, a flock will break and run for a place of safety, and if still followed will 
scatter, each individual for itself. But in the far West, on the appearance of a like 
danger, the sheep will run directly to a common centre, and arranging themselves 
in a circle, heads outward, await further movements of the enemy. 
