June 30, 1898] 



NATURE 



195 



Section (19) dealing with Arbitrariness of Coloration 

 (viz. the fact that colouring often has no " reference to the 

 somatic importance of organs "). He here speaks of a 

 black Australian bug of the genus Pirates, in which the 

 wings of the male and the abdomen of the wingless 

 female are similarly striped and spotted with dirty 

 yellow. " What, then, does this mean ? When the 

 pattern was produced, it fell upon the wings of the male, 

 and in the female on the uncovered abdomen." 



There is a conspicuous want of method and arrange- 

 ment in the Sections recognised by the author. Thus 

 the idea of a pattern which persists over the body sur- 

 face independently of structural features but related to 

 attitude, is the central conception of many of the Sec- 

 tions, and even those as widely separated as (3) is from 

 (18) and (19). It is interesting to compare this point of 

 view with that of the late Alfred Tylor, who ingeniously 

 attempted to show that the true significance of pattern is 

 to be found in its relation to underlying structure. Un- 

 doubtedly many patterns possess this relationship, and 

 undoubtedly many others as conspicuously lack it. The 

 facts on which both naturalists relied are certainly right, 

 while their conclusions are as wrong as they are contra- 

 dictory of each other — Brunner, that pattern is produced 

 upon the organism by some power outside it, and caring 

 nothing for its structural differentiation ; Tylor, that 

 there is some deep and significant bond between pattern 

 and underlying structure, so that the former becomes 

 the outward and visible sign of the latter. 



The attempt has now been made to give the whole of 

 the '• laws which have no connection with the care for 

 the preservation of species " which the author claims to 

 have found. To the majority of naturalists these " laws " 

 will appear to be the grouping of certain markings and 

 patterns according to more or less superficial resem- 

 blances between them ; and this being done, the real 

 interest now begins— the attempt to ascertain their signi- 

 ficance in the lives of their possessors. Much interest, too, 

 awaits a minute investigation of many of the groups in 

 order to make out whether they are based on superficial 

 appearances, and therefore artificial, or whether they are 

 real and natural. 



To the author, however, it all means far more than 

 this. As the memoir was being studied, the continual 

 fursuit of detailed metaphor led to the belief that the 

 author did not regard his imagery as metaphor only. In 

 tne brief Conclusion he speaks out on the question. 



" In the above paper I have brought into a system 

 the divergent facts of coloration. In so doing, simple 

 principles hav€ been formed which coincide in a remark- 

 able manner with those of the human painters' arts. The 

 agreement is so striking that one is tempted to use the 

 terms of our own technique in descriptions. I speak of 

 splashing, stencil-painting and brush-painting, also of 

 the position of the insect when the colour was applied, of 

 •sketching in the pattern in different ways, &c." 



" This is figurative language, but the uniformity of the 

 phenomena forces one to the conjecture, that the process 

 in nature is of a similar character ; that is to say, a phe- 

 nomenon which acts from without, independent of the 

 biology of the animal coloured and in nowise connected 

 with its structure." 



When we inquire what this power can be, the author 

 (replies as follows : — 



NO. 1496, VOL. 58] 



" The e.xact sciences have accustomed us to refer all 

 natural phenomena to the action of definite, inviolable 

 laws. In the coloration of insects, however, we meet 

 with an arbitrariness striving to produce attributes with- 

 out regard for their possessors and, therefore, obviously 

 to be looked upon as the emanation of a Will existing 

 above the universe." 



Thus Brunner leads us back to a form of special crea- 

 tion. Paley was convinced by the argument of design ; 

 Brunner by the argument of want of design. Most of us, 

 while rejecting both, will distmctly prefer the philosophy 

 of the old theologian to that of the great orthopterist. 



The " Will existing above the universe," the Will which 

 Brunner supposes to work out "purposes in creation 

 far more lofty than the mere preservation of the species," 

 is mainly to be recognised by the resemblance of its 

 handiwork to that produced by the methods of the 

 craftsman, and especially by the remarkable likeness 

 which it presents (as in the wrongly-placed stencil 

 pattern) to a poor form of human art, at its worst. 



The reasons given for rejecting the Darwinian explan- 

 ation are indeed remarkable, but far more remarkable 

 are the hypotheses which the objectors prefer to put in 

 its place. E. B. P. 



BLANFORUS BIRDS OF INDIA. 



The Fatma of British India. Birds, NoX.w. By W. T. 

 Blanford. 8vo. Pp. xxi -f 500. (London : Taylor and 

 Francis, 1898.) 



THE present volume completes the Vertebrates of the 

 Indian Fauna, and the editor (in this case also the 

 author) is to be congratulated on having thus far so 

 successfully accomplished a very important and at the 

 same time a very difficult task. The volume before us 

 is, perhaps, the most generally interesting of the four 

 devoted to birds, seeing that it treats of groups like the 

 pigeons, the sand-grouse, the game-birds, and the ducks 

 and geese, which claim attention from a wider circle of 

 readers than is attracted by the perching birds and 

 picarians. Since the author, in addition to his scientific 

 qualifications, is also a sportsman who has shot a large 

 number of the species he describes, his work can scarcely 

 fail to prove as acceptable to his brother sportsmen as to 

 scientific ornithologists. Limitations of space have 

 necessarily curtailed the amount of matter devoted to the 

 habits of most of the species, but within such limitations 

 the notices leave little to be desired. 



From its geographical situation, India, we need scarcely 

 remind our readers, is visited during the cold season by 

 vast swarms of game-birds and ducks of various kinds ; 

 and the fauna of these groups is consequently very much 

 larger than might H priori have been expected. Sports- 

 men accordingly often experience considerable difficulty 

 in identifying the species contained in their " bag," but 

 with the publication of the present volume such difficulties 

 should cease. 



Turning to the more strictly scientific aspect of the book, 

 it may be noted that the author is careful to state how much 

 he is indebted to the British Museum Catalogue of Birds, 

 certain volumes of which devoted to several of the groups 

 he describes have appeared at more or less recent dates. 



