308 
DARWINISM 
CHAP. 
than as regards conspicuousness, hence a tendency to any 
decided colour has been preserved and accumulated as serving 
to render the fruit easily visible among its surroundings of 
leaves or herbage. Out of 134 fruit-bearing plants in 
Mongredien’s Trees and Shrubs, and Hooker’s British Flora , 
the fruits of no less than sixty-eight, or rather more than half, 
are red, forty-five are black, fourteen yellow, and seven white. 
The great prevalence of red fruits is almost certainly due to 
their greater conspicuousness having favoured their dispersal, 
though it may also have arisen in part from the chemical 
changes of chlorophyll during ripening and decay producing 
red tints as in many fading leaves. Yet the comparative 
scarcity of yellow in fruits, while it is the most common tint 
of fading leaves, is against this supposition. 
There are, however, a few instances of coloured fruits which 
do not seem to be intended to be eaten; such are the colo- 
cynth plant (Cucumis colocynthus), which has a beautiful fruit 
the size and colour of an orange, but nauseous beyond descrip¬ 
tion to the taste. It has a hard rind, and may perhaps be dis¬ 
persed by being blown along the ground, the colour being an 
adventitious product; but it is quite possible, notwithstanding 
its repulsiveness to us, that it may be eaten by some animals. 
With regard to the fruit of another plant, Calotropis 
procera, there is less doubt, as it is dry and full of thin, 
Hat-winged seeds, with fine silky filaments, eminently adapted 
for wind-dispersal; yet it is of a bright yellow colour, as 
large as an apple, and therefore very conspicuous. Here, 
therefore, tve seem to have colour Avhich is a mere by¬ 
product of the organism and of no use to it; but such 
cases are exceedingly rare, and this rarity, when compared 
with the great abundance of cases in which there is an 
obvious purpose in the colour, adds weight to the evidence 
in favour of the theory of the attractive coloration of edible 
fruits in order that birds and other animals may assist in 
their dispersal. Both the above-named plants are natives of 
Palestine and the adjacent arid countries. 1 
The Colours of Flowers. 
Flowers are much more varied in their colours than fruits, 
1 Canon Tristram’s Natural History of the Bible, pp. 483, 484. 
