The Hope Reports (V. 1 1893-97)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903 edition. Excerpt: ...which exist in the perfect form, hide themselves. The reason probably is that the amount of palatable food available is not sufficient to make it safe to rely on unpalatability, accompanied by warning colouring see also 'Colours of Animals, ' London, 1890, pp. 179, 180. Experiments with hungry animals support this view. It is possible that the conditions are similar in South Africa it is perhaps unnecessary to state that organic conditions were alone referred to, and that warning colours are more characteristic of the wet than of the dry season, thus affording greater opportunities for mimetic resemblance. If it should hereafter be shown that Precis is to some extent unpalatable, and that its resemblance to an Acra3an type is synaposematic rather than pseudaposematic, the parallelism with our own fauna would be even closer, the conspicuous species which hide and thus adopt procryptic habits being represented by one which give3 rise to another brood with markedly procryptic colouring and habits. Mr. Marshall in commenting on this note records the following interesting observations on the habits of South African Coleoptera as determined by damp and dryness. Salisbury, Feb. 12, 1899.--Do you think that the English Coccinellidie really hide in winter owing to their increased danger from enemies, and not from climatic causes? I ask the question because in this country Coleoptera are highly susceptible to weather. They appear to be for the most part absolutely dependent on moisture, this being especially noticeable among the terrestrial forms such as Cicindelidm, Carabidie, Psammodes, 438 Mr. G. A. K. Marshall on Anovmlipus, etc. These insects appear with a rush as soon as the early rains have saturated the ground, but should a dry...