result from certain efforts of the insect, in the employment of those instincts and instruments with which Providence has furnished it for this purpose.[1] Thus, in a little book on British Hawk Moths, the writer states that some of these insects "seem to put all their trust in a resemblance they may bear to some natural object, which by a wonderful and unerring instinct they seldom fail to find."[2] Many of the illustrations given by authors of protective resemblances and mimicry are "passive," and considered as the result of natural selection, slowly accentuating and perpetuating the current of variation that makes for protection, and of which, on every philosophical consideration, the animal thus evolved can have no consciousness, beyond a more or less habit of adaptation to its environment; in fact, a Cartesian would say the whole phenomenon was indicative of animal automatism. But it is open to strong suggestion that this is only one, and a subordinate phase of the phenomenon, and that animals of their own volition, and in their efforts to avoid their enemies, place themselves where possible in such adaptation to their surroundings, that protective resemblance and some forms of mimicry are due to animal intelligence, and not so entirely to what is generally understood as the unconscious process of natural selection.[3] Mr. Coe has also affirmed that "there is an enormous amount of evidence, which shows that animals are conscious of the protection afforded by colour, and that they assist the 'disguises' which arise from their likeness to inanimate objects by their own intelligence and contrivance."[4] Thus Mr. Wakefield Richardson has recently recorded an observation he made by which a Wren
- ↑ 'Introd. Entomology,' 2nd edit. p. 404.—Prof. Henslow has also quite recently remarked "that there appears to be two distinct kinds of mimicry: (1) automatic and unconscious; (2) brought about by conscious action of the creature." ('Journ. Roy. Horticultural Soc' xxiii. p. 28 (1899).)
- ↑ W.J. Lucas, 'Book of Brit. Hawk Moths,' p. 13.
- ↑ Col. Pollok has suggested an excellent example of limited intelligence in the Tiger:—"All Deer possess an acute sense of smell, and against it a Tiger has to contend before he can provide his larder with game; but how does he manage it? We cannot give him the credit of the intellect of man, who, in pursuit of game, is well aware nothing can be done down wind. Were it so, not a Sambur or Deer would be left alive. The Tiger would bag them all just as he pleased,—in fact, he would then be able to kill any Deer when he wanted it." ('Zoologist,' 1898, p. 155.)
- ↑ 'Nature versus Natural Selection,' p. 171.
