page_title: The Colours of Animals
section_title: Contents
hierarchical_section_title: The Colours of Animals / Book / Contents
caption_attribution_description: English: Frontispiece of The Colours of Animals by Edward Bagnall Poulton, 1890, showing Mimicry in South African Butterflies. Figs 3, 4, 5 females of a Papilio, totally unlike the male (Fig 1) but mimicking respectively three species of the unpalatable genus Danais (Figs 3a, 4a, 5a). The female (Fig 2) of a nearly allied Papilio, in Madagascar, is not mimetic and resembles the male.
context_page_description: The Colours of Animals is a zoology book written in 1890 by Sir Edward Bagnall Poulton. It was the first substantial textbook to argue the case for Darwinian selection applying to all aspects of animal coloration. The book also pioneered the concept of frequency-dependent selection and introduced the term "aposematism".
  The book begins with a brief account of the physical causes of animal coloration. The second chapter gives an overview of the book, describing the various uses of colour in terms of the advantages it can bring through natural selection. The next seven chapters describe camouflage, both in predators and in prey. Methods of camouflage covered include background matching, resemblance to specific objects such as bird droppings, self-decoration with materials from the environment, and the seasonal colour change of arctic animals. Two chapters cover warning colours, including both Batesian mimicry, where the mimic is edible, and Mullerian mimicry, where distasteful species mimic each other. A chapter then looks at how animals combine multiple methods of defence, for instance in the puss moth. Two chapters examine coloration related to sexual selection.
context_section_description: The book's structure emphasises the extent to which Poulton, like Darwin, relied on a mass of evidence, mainly from insects, to make his case:
  Chapter 1 The Physical Cause of Animal Colours.
  Poulton introduces absorption, scattering, colour due to "thin plates" (structural coloration), diffraction and refraction.
  Chapter 2 The Uses of Colour.
  The effects of natural selection in creating or destroying colour are discussed. Colour can be non-significant, e.g. directly useful for absorbing heat, Poulton argues, but "By far the most widespread use of colour is to assist an animal in escaping from its enemies or in capturing its prey; the former is Protective, the latter Aggressive [resemblance, i.e. camouflage]." The topics of mimicry, warning coloration, and sexual selection are introduced.
  Chapter 3 Protective Resemblances in Lepidoptera.
  Poulton distinguishes "special" from "general" resemblances, meaning mimicking a specific object "of no interest to its enemies", or just harmonising "with the general artistic effect of its surroundings", giving examples from moth caterpillars found in England such as the peppered moth and the brimstone moth.
  Chapter 4 Protective Resemblances in Lepidoptera (continued), Dimorphism, Etc.
  The privet hawkmoth caterpillar is used as an example of "general resemblance". Dimorphism, where caterpillars of a species are sometimes green, sometimes brown, is discussed. The delicacy of larvae is given as a reason for their "wonderful concealment": one touch from a predator "being practically fatal". The resemblance of Kallima and some moths to dead leaves is examined.
  Chapter 5 Protective Resemblances In Vertebrata, Etc.
  The camouflage of snakes, female birds that "undertake the duty of incubation", birds' eggs, mammals, fish, and marine molluscs is briefly covered.
  Chapter 6 Aggressive Resemblances — Adventitious Protection.
  The camouflage of predators including lizards, angler fish, mantises including Hymenopus bicornis and the bird-dropping spider is described. "Adventitious protection", making use of materials from the environment, is illustrated with examples such as the decorator crabs and caddis fly larvae, which build tubes "of grains of sand, small shells (often alive), vegetable fragments".
  Chapter 7 Variable Protective Resemblance in Vertebrata, Etc.
  The ability of animals including fish, lizards and frogs to change their colours quickly is discussed. The changing of the pelage of arctic animals is attributed to the indirect effect of the change in temperature, i.e. a physiological response not a simple physical effect.
  Chapter 8 Variable Protective Resemblance In Insects.
  Poulton describes in detail experiments demonstrating that moth pupae take on the colour of the background experienced earlier by the larvae.
  Chapter 9 Protective Resemblances in Lepidoptera (continued).
  Poulton discusses the metallic appearance of insect pupae, which he says is the reason for the name "chrysalis". He rejects the (Lamarckian) view of the "origin of colour, by the direct influence of environment accumulated through many generations", which he agrees is "a very tempting conclusion", because of "clear evidence that the medium of the nervous system was necessary.
  Chapter 10 Warning Colours.
  The conspicuous warning colours of many insects, skunks, snakes and salamanders are discussed. "It must have been obvious to any one interested in natural history that the insects met with during a walk in summer may be arranged in two great groups: ... difficult to find ... and ... startling colours and conspicuous attitudes" The association of warning with "nauseous or dangerous" animals is identified. The idea that warning coloured animals must be scarce relative to palatable ones is mentioned, along with the reason why different animals use the same warning colours.
  Chapter 11 Warning Colours (continued).
  Poulton discusses the relationship of colours used for sexual selection and for warning, and continues the discussion of warning with many examples, including Mullerian mimicry, noting that this can both make a pai
caption: Frontispiece: Mimicry in South African Butterflies, the only chromolithograph in the book
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