Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/683

Rh mimicking spider of the eastern archipelago. We have also followed Bates and Wallace along the Amazon, or Belt in the wilds of Nicaragua, as they studied the tropical butterflies which mimic each other so strangely.

The fact that most published accounts of mimicry and protective resemblance deal with animals of tropical countries has led to a general impression that to observe these curious color phenomena one must travel to out-of-the-way places; that the creatures about us are commonplace and uninteresting. But to the seeing eye and the attentive mind there are as many facts of interest in a stroll through northern woods as through the Everglades. Richard Jeffries and John Burroughs found in England and New York most interesting phases of tropical life, and had besides the exhaustless treasures of their temperate out-of-doors to draw upon. The tropics are full of strangeness to northern eyes, and possess many phases of life that seem wonderful to unaccustomed minds. But the luxuriance of vegetable life is almost oppressive; it is always in full glory; one does not see the bursting buds and the greening leaves because the full foliage overshadows all else.

The animals of the north show numberless color phases of interest. One of the most curious of these is exhibited by several families of insects in which the outer wings are protectively colored in dull



hues and the under wings brightly colored. For example, there are many species of moths belonging to the genus Catocala found throughout the United States. These are insects of good size, the larger ones measuring three inches in expanse of wings, and the majority of them being at least two thirds that size. Most of them live during the day on the bark of trees, with their front wings folded together over the back. The colors and markings of these wings, as