30 ANIMAL COLORATION. 



speckled plumage is very common among these birds (e.g. 

 Golden-Plover, Thick Knee, etc.), and might therefore be 

 expected to occur in the nearly related group of the Gulls. 



In the same way many Carnivora are spotted ; hence it is 

 not surprising to find a remembrance of this condition in those 

 species which are self-coloured. 



Professor Eimer has lately published an elaborate memoir 

 upon the markings of the Carnivora in which he maintains 

 that there has been a gradual progression from longitudinal 

 striping to spots, and that these have later united to form 

 cross-bars, a uniform coloration being the last term in the 

 series. This order is invariably maintained a uniform 

 coloration, for example, never preceding a longitudinal 

 striping. Accordingly, though we find the young of the self- 

 coloured Puma spotted, we do not find a uniform coloration 

 in the young of any spotted or barred species. It must be 

 mentioned, however, that this conclusion of Eimer's has been 

 disputed by another zoologist, Dr. Haacke, who has found 

 cross stripes in the young of a certain Australian fish, which 

 is longitudinally striped when adult. 



The regularity in the development of the markings of 

 the Carnivora corresponds to the regularity which Prof. 

 Weismann found in the markings of his caterpillars ; and in 

 both cases Prof. Eimer sees a definite law of variation altogether 

 independent of natural selection. 



Prof. Eimer does not quote in his " Organic Evolution," 

 as he might have done, an interesting observation to which 

 Mr. Wallace has referred on the authority of the late Mr. 

 Alfred Tylor. It is that the cross stripes in the young of 

 certain hogs are preceded by spots which actually do fuse 

 .together to form the cross-bars. 



Still, these examples, like those described by Prof. Weis- 



