336 
DARWINISM 
CHAP. 
are more gorgeous than some of the tiger-beetles and the 
carabi, yet these are all carnivorous; while many of the most 
brilliant metallic buprestidse and longicorns are always found 
on the bark of fallen trees. So with the humming-birds ; 
their brilliant metallic tints can only be compared with metals 
or gems, and are totally unlike the delicate pinks and purples, 
yellows and reds of the majority of flowers. Again, the 
Australian honey-suckers (Meliphagidse) are genuine flower- 
haunters, and the Australian flora is more brilliant in colour 
display than that of most tropical regions, yet these birds are, 
as a rule, of dull colours, not superior on the average to our 
grain-eating finches. Then, again, we have the grand pheasant 
family, including the gold and the silver pheasants, the gorgeous 
fire-backed and ocellated pheasants, and the resplendent pea¬ 
cock, all feeding on the ground on grain or seeds or insects, 
yet adorned with the most gorgeous colours. 
There is, therefore, no adequate basis of facts for this theory 
to rest upon, even if there were the slightest reason to believe 
that not only birds, but butterflies and beetles, take any 
delight in colour for its own sake, apart from the food-supply 
of which it indicates the presence. All that has been proved or 
that appears to be probable is, that they are able to perceive 
differences of colour, and to associate each colour with the 
particular flowers or fruits which best satisfy their wants. 
Colour being in its nature diverse, it has been beneficial for 
them to be able to distinguish all its chief varieties, as mani¬ 
fested more particularly in the vegetable kingdom, and among 
the different species of their own group; and the fact that 
certain species of insects show some preference for a particular 
colour may be explained by their having found flowers of 
that colour to yield them a more abundant supply of nectar 
or of pollen. In those cases in which butterflies frequent 
flowers of their own colour, the habit may well have been 
acquired from the protection it affords them. 
It appears to me that, in imputing to insects and birds the 
same love of colour for its own sake and the same esthetic 
tastes as we ourselves possess, we may be as far from the truth 
as were those writers who held that the bee was a good mathe¬ 
matician, and that the honeycomb was constructed throughout 
to satisfy its refined mathematical instincts; whereas it is now 
