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melodies, where a false tint would be like a false note in music ; and 

 just as a musical melody indicates a skilled composer, so does each one 

 of these colour patterns show, as much by what is avoided as by what 

 is seen, the hand of the all-venerated and infinite artist. 



It follows necessarily from the laws of optics, that when we look on 

 any scene in nature, masses of colour are presented to the eye only in 

 the centre and foreground of the prospect, the distance causing all 

 objects approaching the circumference of our view to appear lighter, 

 paler, and smaller. The artist, aware of this, in painting a group of 

 flowers, places the brightest and heaviest in the centre, and surrounds 

 them with such as are more delicate, or with a spray of foliage. 

 Nature does the same. The full-blown rose is in the centre, the 

 buds stand around it. More conspicuously in the wings of lepidop- 

 terous insects, masses of colour are thrown towards the centre, 

 surrounded by spots or patches, whilst the edge is Vandyked, scalloped, 

 or looped, and beautifully finished off with a ciliary fringe. 



A peculiar configuration of colour, admitting of considerable variety 

 in the details, but disposed after the same type, is frequently a dis- 

 tinctive mark of affinity amongst natural productions. This is too 

 well known to require much illustration. There are, of course, 

 numerous exceptions, but as a rule, for the most part it holds good, 

 that animals, birds, insects, and shells, of the same genus, wherever 

 found, are respectively distinguished by the same style of painting. 

 Now here the interest manifestly dei^ends upon the value we attach to 

 specific distinctions. If we believe in species, and define a species to 

 be all the individuals descended, or that may have descended, from a 

 single pair, then to us the typical colouring of allied species must be 

 most deeply interesting, for it serves no economic purposes. That the 

 very peculiar painting of the European quail, for instance, is a 

 repitition of the same design that is seen in the quail of Australia, is, so 

 far as we can see, unimportant to the bird. Distinct creative acts have 

 produced the two species, why then so alike and yet so different ? Is 

 it too bold to say that the Creator, by this arrangement, encourages and 

 helps our study of his works ? Such study would be almost impossible 

 without recognition of natural orders or groups, and these are nothing 

 more than assemblages of species that we regard as related, because 

 they have many characters in common. 



We now approach the most difficult portion of the subject. In the 

 the colour patterns of natural productions, we may perhaps think we 

 pretty clearly discern indications of a few general jorinciples, in 

 accordance with which, certain combinations of colours have been 

 adopted in preference to others ; but when we attempt to deal with 



