Dazzling and Eclipsing Colors
Many of the butterflies, especially the Angle-wings, which are marked on the under surface in various protective colors, are admirable examples of that phase of animal coloring which is spoken of as dazzling coloration. This is apparently one of the most important protective devices to be found in Nature and the validity of it is now generally conceded by naturalists. One phase of it, which may be called eclipsing coloration, seems to have been first definitely formulated by the late Lord Walsingham, a famous English entomologist who enunciated it in an address as president of the Entomological Society of London. The most significant paragraphs in that address were these:
"My attention was lately drawn to a passage in Herbert Spencer's 'Essay on the Morals of Trade.' He writes: 'As when tasting different foods or wines the palate is disabled by something strongly flavored from appreciating the more delicate flavor of another thing afterward taken, so with the other organs of sense a temporary disability follows an excessive stimulation. This holds not only with the eyes in judging of colors, but also with the fingers in judging of texture.'
"Here, I think, we have an explanation of the principle on which protection is undoubtedly afforded to certain insects by the possession of bright coloring on such parts of their wings or bodies as can be instantly covered and concealed at will. It is an undoubted fact, and one which must have been observed by nearly all collectors of insects abroad, and perhaps also in our own country, that it is more easy to follow with the eye the rapid movements of a more conspicuous insect soberly and uniformly colored than those of an insect capable of changing in an instant the appearance it presents. The eye, having once fixed itself upon an object of a certain form and color, conveys to the mind a corresponding impression, and, if that impression is suddenly found to be unreliable, the instruction which the mind conveys to the eye becomes also unreliable, and the rapidity with which the impression and consequent instruction can be changed cannot always compete successfully with the rapid transformation effected by the insect in its effort to escape."
Lord Walsingham then goes on to suggest that this intermittent play of bright colors probably has as confusing effect upon birds and other predaceous vertebrates as upon man; and that on this hypothesis such colors can be accounted for more satisfactorily than upon any other yet suggested. Since then the significance of this theory has been repeatedly pointed out by Professor Poulton, Mr. Abbott H. Thayer, and various other authorities upon animal coloring. The terms dazzling and eclipsing have been applied to the phenomenon.
Shortly after Lord Walsingham propounded this theory I called attention[A] to its fitness in explaining some of the most interesting color phases shown by American insects, notably the moths and locusts which have brilliantly colored under wings and protectively colored upper wings.
[A] Popular Science Monthly, 1898, "A Game of Hide and Seek." Reprinted in the Insect World, 1899.
The animals of the north show numberless color phases of interest. One of the most curious of these is exhibited by several families of insects in which the outer wings are protectively colored in dull hues and the under wings brightly colored. For example, there are many species of moths belonging to the genus Catocala found throughout the United States. These are insects of good size, the larger ones measuring three inches in expanse of wings, and the majority of them being at least two thirds that size. Most of them live during the day on the bark of trees, with their front wings folded together over the back. The colors and markings of these wings, as well as of the rest of the exposed portions of the body, are such as to assimilate closely with the bark of the tree upon which the insect rests. In such a situation it requires a sharp eye to detect the presence of the moth, which, unless disturbed, flies only at night, remaining all day exposed to the attacks of many enemies. Probably the most important of these are the birds, especially species like the woodpeckers, which are constantly exploring all portions of the trunks of trees.
The chief beauty of these Catocalas, as they are seen spread out in the museum cabinet, lies in the fact that the hind wings, which, when the moth is at rest in life, are concealed by the front ones, are brightly colored in contrasting hues of black, red, and white in various brilliant combinations. These colors, in connection with the soft and blended tones of the front wings, make a very handsome insect.
It is easy to see that when one of these Underwing Moths is driven to flight by a woodpecker or other bark-searching bird it would show during its rapid, irregular flight the bright colors of the under wings which would be instantly hidden upon alighting and the very different coloring of the upper wings blending with the bark would be substituted. Consequently, the bird would be very likely to be baffled in its pursuit.