6 io THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



have gone on developing side by side ; each plant surviving in pro- 

 portion as its seeds grew more and more distinctive, and each animal, 

 in turn, standing a better chance of food in proportion as its discrimi- 

 nation of such seeds grew more and more acute. But as there are ex- 

 cellent reasons for crediting fishes and reptiles also with a high faculty 

 for the perception of color, it may be safer to conclude that the sense 

 was inherited by birds and mammals from our common vertebrate pro- 

 genitors, being only quickened and intensified by the reactive influence 

 of fruits. 



Yet it must be remembered that the earliest fruit-eaters, though 

 they might find the scarlet, crimson, or purple coats of their food an 

 aid to discrimination in the primeval forests, would not necessarily 

 derive any pleasure from the stimulation thus afforded That pleasure 

 has been slowly begotten in all frugivorous races by the constant use 

 of these particular nerves in the search for food, which has at last pro- 

 duced in them a calibre and a sensitiveness answering pleasurably to 

 the appropriate stimulation. Just as the peach, which a dog would re- 

 ject, has become delicious to our sense of taste ; just as the pineapple, 

 at which he would sniff unconcernedly, has become exquisite to our 

 sense of smell so the pure tints of the plum, the orange, the mango, 

 and the pomegranate, which he would disregard, have become lovely 

 to our sense of color. And, further still, just as we transfer the tastes 

 formed in the first two cases to the sweetmeats of the East, or to the 

 violets, hyacinths, and heliotropes of our gardens, so do we transfer 

 the taste formed in the third case to our gorgeous peonies, roses, dah- 

 lias, crocuses, tiger-lilies, and chrysanthemums ; to our silks, satins, 

 damasks, and textile fabrics generally ; to our vases, our mosaics, our 

 painted windows, our frescoed walls, our Academies, our Louvres, and 

 our Vaticans. Even as we put sugar and spices into insipid dishes to 

 gratify the gustatory nerves, whose sensibility was originally developed 

 by the savor of tropical fruits, so do we put red, blue, and purple, into 

 our pottery, our decoration, and our painting, to gratify the visual 

 nerves, whose sensibility was originally developed by the rich tint of 

 grapes and strawberries, star-apples and oranges. 



And here again, as in the case of flowers, the feeling once aroused 

 has found for itself new objects in the voluntary selection of beautiful 

 mates that is to say, of mates whose coloring gratified the rising de- 

 light in pure tints. The taste formed upon blossoms produced, by its 

 reaction, crimson butterflies and burnished beetles, the sun-birds of the 

 East, and the humming-birds of the West. So, too, the taste formed 

 upon fruits produced, by a like reaction, parrots, cockatoos, toucans, 

 birds-of-paradise, nutmeg-pigeons, and a thousand other tropical creat- 

 ures of exquisite plumage and delicate form. As we mount up through 

 the mammalian series, we scarcely come upon any hues brighter than 

 dull-brown or tawnj'-yellow among the marsupials, the carnivores, the 

 ruminants, or the thick-skinned beasts; but when we arrive at the 



