Repeated experiments have been made, which have shown that such
butterflies are rejected not only by the insectivorous birds of the
primitive forest, but also by tame turkeys, pheasants and partridges,
usually so greedy. Hahnel has recently repeated these experiments in
Brazil with hens, and he obtained the same result. The hens, 'which
otherwise devoured all butterflies eagerly,' rejected all Ithomidæ,
Heliconiidæ, the white Papilios, as also some of the gaily coloured
Heliconiid-like moths which fly by day, such as _Esthema bicolor_ and
_Pericopis lycorea_. Obviously, the gay or conspicuous colour of these
Lepidoptera acts as a warning signal of their unpalatability, and
protects them from attempts on the part of the birds to investigate
their flavour. Hence we find that the under surface of these insects
is coloured like the upper. Even the numbers of these species which
fly about indicates that they must be little decimated, and, in point
of fact, we never find the wings of Heliconiidæ lying on the ground in
the forests of South America, while those of the Nymphalidæ and other
butterflies are by no means uncommonly seen as the remains of birds'
meals.
There is just as little room for doubt, as in the case of the
Heliconiidæ and their allies, that the Danaidæ, Acræidæ, and the
Euplœidæ in the tropical regions of the Old World enjoy a certain
immunity on account of their repulsive odour and taste. Here, too,
observation and experiment have shown that birds, lizards, and
predaceous insects leave the butterflies of these families unmolested.
I need only mention the observation of Trimen that, under an acacia
much visited by butterflies, on which Mantides--the so-called
praying-insects--caught and devoured large numbers, the wings of an
_Acræa_ or a _Danais_ were never found. These unpalatable butterflies
also possess a motley or at least striking dress, recognizable from
afar, and alike on both surfaces; and they also have a slow flight,
by which they are readily recognized. They, too, usually assemble
in large swarms, and both sexes are alike, or resemble each other
closely in colouring, or at least they are both equally conspicuous.
But even these cases do not complete the list of butterflies which are
protected by their unpalatability; among the otherwise much-persecuted
and therefore palatable Pieridæ (Whites) there is an Asiatic genus,
_Delias_, which in all probability belongs to the immune butterflies,
as their gaily coloured under surface indicates, and among the
nocturnal Lepidoptera of different countries and families there are
isolated generations which are very gaily and conspicuously coloured,
and which are rejected by birds, their unpleasant odour being
perceptible at a distance of several feet (Chalcosiidæ and Eusemiidæ).
The latter no longer fly under cover of night, like their relatives,
but have assumed diurnal habits.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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