COLOR-SENSE 85 



monkey as for man, and that it is brightest for the dark- 

 adapted monkey in the region where it is also brightest for 

 the dark-adapted man. 



From the results obtained by these various experimenters 

 it seems evident that the color-sense of monkeys is much 

 the same as in man, but that that of dogs and of other 

 mammals experimented on is much less highly developed. 



The origin of the color-sense and of the coloring of animals 

 received much attention from the great pioneers of evolution 

 of the last century- -Darwin, Alfred Russell Wallace, 

 Lubbock and Grant Allen. Much of what thev wrote, 



t/ / 



brings out very clearly what I am now endeavoring to show, 

 viz., that the color vision of Primates is far more acute than 

 that of other mammals, and that this is due to their arboreal 

 life with its natural accompaniment of a frugiferous diet. 

 I cannot do better than quote from their writings, especially 

 from Grant Allen's 44 fascinating book on The Color Sense: 

 its Origin and Development, which has not, I think, attracted 

 the amount of attention which it deserves. What is to be 

 learned regarding the color-vision of mammals from a study 

 of their natural history he sums up as follows: 



'When we come to the highest class of vertebrates - 

 the Mammalia strangely enough the evidence of a color- 

 sense almost fails us. The antipathy of male ruminants 

 for scarlet and the curiosity which certain monkeys display 

 with regard to bright-colored objects are the only facts 

 in point which come under ordinary observation. This 

 result, so contrary to what we might have expected, appears 

 quite natural when we examine more closely the cir- 

 cumstances of the case. By far the larger part of the mam- 

 mals are herbivorous like the ruminants and pachyderms, 

 or carnivorous like the technical carnivores, insect ivores 

 and whales. Only a small portion of the class subsists 



