Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 2 (1898).djvu/47

Rh under the stimulus of fear or anger, in exactly the same way as the Rattlesnake makes use of its rattle. So far as I am aware, the only explanation that has been suggested touching the function of the snake's rattle is that it serves as an advertisement of the whereabouts of the poisonous reptile, so that it may be avoided by enemies which might otherwise inadvertently injure it. Similarly poisonous and noxious insects are decked with warning colours, so that they may be readily recognized and not slain in mistake for harmless or edible species. If this be the true explanation of the so-called warning coloration of the insects in question, and of the whirring noise made by the Rattlesnake, there seems to be no reason to doubt that the same significance is to be attached to the stridulation emitted by the peculiar organs recently discovered in the great African Spiders and described in the preceding pages.