Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 6 (1902).djvu/218

176 gives as a typical example the larva of the Magpie Moth (Abraxas grossulariata), as a showy, self-advertising, inedible creature, regarding which "all observers agree that birds, lizards, frogs, and spiders either refuse the species altogether, or exhibit signs of the most intense disgust after tasting it." This caterpillar is very common in gardens, and other and previous observers (Jenner Weir, Butler, and, more cautiously and critically, Beddard) have advanced a similar opinion as to its more or less immunity from attack. But Prof. Plateau, of Ghent, has subjected the question to a thorough experimental investigation, and finds that A. grossulariata does not disregard means of concealment, that it is protected by no special nauseous flavour, and that it is readily attacked under suitable conditions by certain Vertebrata, Arachnida, Coleoptera, Adephaga, and insect parasites. He concludes:—"The results of this research go to prove that, in the case of Abraxas, conspicuous coloration does not possess the warning significance which has been attributed to it, and naturalists will do well to apply further experimental tests to other cases in which this explanation has met with a too facile acceptance." In the pages of this Journal, Mr. Page has recorded how both larvæ and imagos of this species were greedily eaten by the birds in his aviary; and Mr. Oxley Grabham has found the stomachs of Cuckoos "crammed with these obnoxious larvæ."

Although it is dangerous to state the factors of all animal psychology in the terms applied to our own, it is still as equally misleading to allow the theory of automatism to dominate our minds when observing the actions of other animals. Some of the most highly educated, as well as some of the most ignorant men contemn their other animal colleagues as speechless, and imply that articulate language as used by ourselves must be the only means for interchange of ideas, and this in face of the well-known contrary evidence afforded by "gesture