The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1889-03-21
Mimicry in Nature.

Go to the sea-shore and observe the
grasshoppers among the beach grass.
They lily up at your approach, whiz
off rod or so, and alight. Can you
see them? They are colored so nearly
like the sands they live upon that de-
lection of one at rest is almost i'm
possible. On yonder grassy bluff, a
stone's-throw away, you will find none
of them, but other kinds equally. or
almost equally, lost to sight by their
harmony with their surroundings.
What chance of life for either if they
suddenly changed places? They would
be so conspicuous that every passing
bird or other insectivorous creature
would sight them. OF course these
protective colors have been gained by
slow steps. Every grasshopper that
found its preferred food among the
sands was liable to be eaten. In the
long run Just those would be eaten
which were most easily seen. One
which varied in coloring in never so
small degree, so as to be less easily
seen than his brother, would live to
perpetuate his kind. and his brother
come to an untimely end; the progeny
would show the fortunate variation,
and be more likely to be spared to
transmit in increased volume the prob
ability of the happy coloring. Given,
then, a brood of grasshoppers that find
their preferred food in sandy spots,
| and unless other and more powerful
| forces act upon them it must result,
from their liability to be eaten by crea-
lures fond of grasshoppers, that in
time they will resemble in coloring the
sand on which they live; it is impossi-
BILE that they should not. Any crea-
ture not specially protected by nause-
business, or habit, or special device OF
some sort, must in the very nature OF
things, if it is to live at all, have some
other protection, and that afforded by
color and pattern is by far tho most
common. The world is made up OF
eaters and eaten, of devices to catch
and devices to avoid being caught.
We may apply the same reasoning
to two kinds of butterflies subject ma.
turally to the same class of enemies;
that is, living in the same region and
flying at the same time. If one has
the slightest advantage over the other
the other in the fight for life, by be-
ing, for instance, distasteful to one
class of common enemies, so that these
forbear to attack it after experiment
or by instinct (the result of ancestral
experiments), and there be among the
less favored flock, here and there, an
individual which. under circumstances
favoring it, such as distance or shadow
may more often than its fellows be
mistaken by the enemies for one of it
distasteful neighbors through its pos
session of little more than usual o.
certain tint on a part of the wing. 8
little larger spot here, or more of the
semblance of 4 band thePe,-how small
soever this difference may be, it must
by the laws of natural selection. bt
cherished, perpetuated, increased. by
slow but sure steps. Nor is there any
limit to its increase except its absolute
deception of the enemy. So long a.
there is the slightest advantage il
variation in definite possible direc
ton. the struggle for existenre viii
compel that variation. Knowing wha
we now know of the laws of life, MIN
icry of favored races might even hav,
been predicted. Samuel II. Scudder
in 1Atlot1atic