Morning journal and courier., 1881-06-18
Butterflies Ways.
How They Protect Themselves and ID
 Their Counting.

How They Protect Themselves and Do Their Counting.
 It is not difficult, says the PdU lNaU GG- sette to see that the difference in color in the two sides of butterfys wings must be de signed for some special purpose, and that the purpose of the under side is to escape detection, while the purpose of the upper side is to attract attention. The protective use of the brown under wings is very simply explained. The insect must be much ex- posed to birds and other hostile creatures as 1t sits still, and it requires to resemble the ground, leaves, twigs on which it usually settles in order to deceive the eyes of its enemies. To some people it seems that so slight protection as this could scarcely be of any use to the butterfly. Natural selec- tion, they say, can hardly work on such petty differences. But to talk so is really to show misapprehension of what natural selection rightly means. Every butterfly which is .'spotted'' by bird, and so devoured, is wiped out of existence forever, with all it's possible progeny. Every butterfly which es capes, by however slight peculiarity, is en- abled to lay it's eggs in peace and to hand on
 it's peculiarities to it's posterity. This sort of selection is going on every day around us, and no difference is too slight for 1t to select, no resemblance is too clumsy provided it once for moment aids the insect in avoid ing destruction. Now, we all know that the eyes of birds are very sharp and keen in- deed. hawk soaring so high in the air that human sight fails to perceive it will yet discriminate and bounce down upon lark ln the fields below-a small brown bird seated upon brown clod of earth exactly like it. self in color. In just the same way the in sectiverous birds keep sharp lookout for moths and butterflies, upon which they sweop at once whenever they distinguish them upon the ground beneath. Every day those insects whose color betrays them get thinned out by their watchful enemies, while those whose color protects manage. to lay their eggs in peace. and hand on their own peculiar spots and lines to their descendants.
 The consequence in the long run is that the butterflies get better protected from genera tion to generation, the chances of inter breeding with badly protected individuals are eliminated by the action of the birds, while only the most imitatively colored individuals are left to mate with one another and-to be- come the parents of future swarms. Thus the hostile birds are themselves the instru- ments through which the insects have been armed defsnsive1y against their depredations. For the various individuals tend always to vary little in marking-no two plants or animals of the same species are ever exactly alike-but the picking of of the brightly col ored individuals by the birds helps to pre- serve the protected specific type intact. And, of course, the same causes which now pre- serve it originally produced 1t. Ever since birds and butterflies have existed the process must constantly have been at work and the birds and butterflies themselves in the forms that we know them are the final outcome of it's perpetual interaotion.
 This sufficiently accounts for the imita- tive ooloring of the under surface, but it does not sufficiently account for the brilliant and attractive hues of the upper side. Those hues were probably produced in very diff ferent manner At this exact moment I saw two red admirals above the hedge wonder en- gagged in their pretty rhythmical courtship, flying round and -ound one another, now on top and now beneath, chasing each other in graceful curves, and seeming to be engaged for ten minutes at time in a sort of aerial quadrille. These two butterhys are helping in their small degree to keep up and intensi- fy the beautiful colors of their race. They are ooquetting and flirting together, each eager to display all it's charms to the best ad- vantage and to attract the other by it's own beauty. If third and prettier butterfly happens to sail up, the belle will bestow her affections upon the new conner and the van- quished beau will sink away disgraced, leav- ing her to her chosen mate. This second sort of selection is going on forever, side by side with the first the prettiest, freshest and most daintily marked insects being always preferred in the pairing over duller, dingier or more battered rivals It is interesting to note how the two kinds of selection run par allel with one another. While the butterflies are poised motionless upon twigs or flowers they are in the greatest dan ger from birds; but in such positions they close their wings and display only the outer surface, which is imitatively and protectively colored. The constant picking of of all