620 



THE DESCENT OF MAN. 



profiting by being peculiarly colored. He raised from fifty 

 to sixty white and brown piebald rabbits in a large walled 

 orchard; and he had at the same time some similarly 

 colored cats in his house. Such cats, as I have often 

 noticed, are very conspicuous during the day; but, as they 



Fig. 70. Tragelaphus scriptus, maie (from the Knowsley Menagerie). 



used to lie in watch during the dusk at the mouths of the 

 burrows, the rabbits apparently did not distinguish them 

 from their party-colored brethren. The result was that, 

 within eighteen months, every one of these party-colored 

 rabbits was destroyed; and there was evidence that this 

 was effected by the cats. Color seems to be advantageous 

 to another animal, the skunk, in a manner of which we 

 have had many instances in other classes. No animal will 

 voluntarily attack one of these creatures on account of the 

 dreadful odor which it emits when irritated; but during the 



