1922.] Species and Subsjecies. 181 



seem to be, that, having once arisen, they were able to 

 persist by virtue of this gametic origin phis the additional 

 tact that they occurred in isokxted geographical populations, 

 or in populations whose breeding-seasons did not synchronise 

 with those of the typical race. Furthermore, not being 

 blatantly or obviously out of harmony with their sur- 

 roundings they were " good enough,'' and there was no 

 obvious excuse for Natural Selection to interfere. 



To regard such colour-pattern mutations as having been 

 directly initiated and gradually perfected by any form of 

 environmental influence seems to denote little more than a 

 simple faith in a ])urely theoretical conception^ for which 

 almost untold ages and far too great a strain on the scientific 

 imagination are necessary. It seems equally inconceivable 

 to regnrd them as having arisen in response to any adapta- 

 tive call, although to make this assertion is not to deny 

 that many colour-patterns may be adaptative. 



Mr. Stuart Baker, in a highly interesting and important 

 revision of the genus GemKBus (Journ. Bombay Nat. 

 Hist. Soc. xxiii. 1915, pp. 658-689), calls attention to the 

 three dominant types of colour-pattern in this group of 

 pheasants, obtaining respectively in G. liorsjieldi, G. lineatusy 

 and G. nycthemerus, and dwells upon the fact that the 

 obviously contrasted differences in colour-pattern of the 

 three forms are directly due to three different forms of 

 environment. I find it as equally impossible to regard the 

 beautifully etched vermiculations on the dorsal surface of 

 G. Uneatus as having originated in either direct or indirect 

 response to the type of environment described as " hills of 

 moderate height covered with mixed forest, bamboos, and 

 grass laud, with a moderate rainfall " (the last in contradis- 

 tinction to "• a heavy rainfall " in the case of G. /lors/ieldi), 

 as to believe that the peculiar physiognomy of Neanderthal 

 man arose in response to anything co-1'elated witli the 

 physical environment to which he was exposed in Pleistocene 

 Europe. It is, I imagine, as certain as anything can be, 

 that Neanderthal man owed his physical features to a com- 

 plex of factors which ho inherited in the only way we know 



