v COLOURS OF ANIMALS 343 



the beautiful "peacock," "Camberwell beauty," and "red 

 admiral" butterflies, are quite up to the average of tropi- 

 cal colour in the same group ; and the remark will equally 

 apply to the little " blues " and " coppers " ; while the alpine 

 " apollo " butterflies have a delicate beauty that can hardly 

 be surpassed. In other insects, which are less directly 

 dependent on climate and vegetation, we find even greater 

 anomalies. In the immense family of the Carabidae or pre- 

 daceous ground -beetles, the northern forms fully equal, if 

 they do not surpass, all that the tropics can produce. Every- 

 where, too, in hot countries, there are thousands of obscure 

 species of insects which, if they were all collected, would not 

 improbably bring down the average of colour to much about 

 the same level as that of temperate zones. 



But it is when we come to the vegetable world that the 

 greatest misconception on this subject prevails. In abund- 

 ance and variety of floral colour the tropics are almost univer- 

 sally believed to be pre-eminent, not only absolutely, but 

 relatively to the whole mass of vegetation and the total 

 number of species. Twelve years of observation among the 

 vegetation of the eastern and western tropics has, however, 

 convinced me that this notion is entirely erroneous, and that, 

 in proportion to the whole number of species of plants, those 

 having gaily-coloured flowers are actually more abundant in 

 the temperate zones than between the tropics. This will be 

 found to be not so extravagant an assertion as it may at first 

 appear, if we consider how many of the choicest adornments 

 of our greenhouses and flower-shows are really temperate as 

 opposed to tropical plants. The masses of colour produced by 

 our rhododendrons, azaleas, and camellias, our pelargoniums, 

 calceolarias, and cinerarias all strictly temperate plants 

 can certainly not be surpassed, if they can be equalled, by any 

 productions of the tropics. 



It may be objected that most of the plants named are 

 choice cultivated varieties, far surpassing in colour the original 

 stock, while the tropical plants are mostly unvaried wild 

 species. But this does not really much affect the question at 

 issue. For our florists' gorgeous varieties have all been pro- 

 duced under the influence of our cloudy skies, and with even 

 a still further deficiency of light, owing to the necessity of 



