Faunistic Coloration. A letter

FAUNISTIC

FAUNISTIC

COLORAHON.

65

COLO RATION.

T o the Hon. Editor.

MY dear S i r — I have been recently re-reading Mr. Ernest A. Elliott's interesting Article on this subject, which appears at page 273 of our 1934 Transactions ; and I am leaping to the defence of P. A. Buxton who, I think, was too summarily dismissed on page 276. Mr. Buxton does, indeed, invite us to ' nd ourselves of our belief in protective coloiation ' at the book's conclusion ' as far as desert animals are concerned,' otherwise ' no progress is possible ' towards find mg a cause foi the uniformity of coloration of desert species. In so large and interesting a subject as the effect of environment on colour or pattern, I trust you will excuss me for intruding upon your tpace and explaining a little more fully what, to my mind, M r . Buxton intended to convey. He asks us to ' disavow our faith in protective coloration ' as the cause for ' the phenomenon of depigmentation,' which he has been discussing in some detail; he does not deny that colouring may be protective in effect, in certain cases.

Our^ learned Member's Australian observations, therefore, of the ' demzens of the great open spaces ' which afford ' striking examples of the truest Protective Resemblance by colour,' are Wide away from M r . Buxton's point, which is that the peculiar desert coloration has no survival-value and that its converse in the black desert animals is not a disadvantage in the struggle for existence. Hence protective coloration cannot be a patterniorming or colour-determining factor in evolution. I think Mr. Buxton suggests that future research may show that the lormative factors are physical, probably chemical: this is, at least, my own belief.

To leave the desert for a moment and to transkte this principle mto the familiär Suffolk sphere, the Merveil-du-Jour Moth {folia aprihna, L.) has not acquired its indisputably protective colouring because its ancestors who deviated in other directions ot colouring were preyed upon and exterminated, but because the effect of local conditions, perhaps the chemical action of the k- L d l e t ' P r o d u c e d t h e resemblance to lichen-clad oak-bark which so stnkes us. When motionless by day, Aprilina uses this coloiation and is protected by i t ; but, when on the wing at night, it will not protect the Moth from Bats . . . Mr. Buxton «irgues that in the desert many species do not profit from their typical d e s e r t ' coloration, while some few do so. He suggests, therefore, that in research on the problem of the determlning v

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FAUNISTIC COLORATION.

causes of colour the idea of protective coloration is irrelevant and should be discarded. Certainly I do not think that his Animal Life in Deserts can be quoted as an example of a modern ' tendency to discredit animals' adaptability to environment.'

But it does suggest that in any such adaptation, protective value plays no part.

I am, Sir, yours faithfully, E. P. W i l t s h i r e .

British Consulate, Bagdad ; 28 October 1935.

PRIORITY. To the Hon. Editor.

My dear Sir.—The Law of Priority in Zoological Nomenclature, so excellent in theory and interminable in practice, has been pursued by Naturalists quite long enough. The period is come to call a H a l t ! For the last Century we have been searching out the earliest name applied to every genus and, for instance, every one of our fifteen thousand British insects, tili the ridiculous result has often emerged : that we have to revert to a moth's English name to fix the indication (e.g. the Bee-hawk, fuciformis) !

Omitting merely a few academic pedants, every one is thoroughly wearied of the horrid chaos into which such Classification is devolving. On all hands disgust is heard expressed at the recurring " change of n a m e " among innumerable common objects of the country-side. And now, after three generations' patience is exhausted by waiting for unachievable finality, the " Royal* Entomological Society of London " issues in February 1934 Recommendations relating to the publication of the report of the Committee on Generic Nomenclature—merely generic, mark you. In February 1934, also, follows this Committee's Generic names of British Rhopalocera, treating of forty-six genera (consecutively numbered throughout) that embrace sixty-eight species of Butterflies. Finally in July 1935, eighteen months later, comes Generic names of British Odonata, that deals with twenty* O u r learned H o n . Editor seems reasonably loath to concede the newlv prefixed ' Royal ' to the century-established Entomological Society of L o n d o n . Technically the new charter exists and such title stands ; but, t h o u g h none is loyaler to the British T h r o n e , I consider any scientific m a t t e r or person as is royal mixes metaphors.—L.S.