i o<5 STUDIES IN THE EVOLUTION OF ANIMALS 



Between these two extremes, numerous intermediate variations 

 of the rosettes occur, as the reader can see for himself. 



I particularly dwell on the markings of the Jaguar, because they 

 appear to me to be the typical markings, out of which many others 

 we see in various animals have been elaborated or evolved. 



It would be idle to suppose that each separate group of spotlets, 

 forming a rosette, was made as it is by a process of natural 

 selection. Such a notion would be wholly untenable. All the 

 rosettes have a family resemblance, and therefore must have had a 

 common origin. Natural selection may have had something to do 

 with maintaining the general character of the spotted skin, but it 

 could not possibly have had anything to do with moulding the 

 outlines of each individual group of spotlets. 



We must therefore look for a cause or causes of these markings 

 which, at the same time that they allowed them to vary, stamped 

 them with the features of a common parentage. If the Leopards 

 have retained (not acquired) their very peculiar markings, so 

 different from those of the generality of mammals, it would seem 

 to follow that these animals emerged out of some more ancient 

 mould with these peculiar marks. Their common family resem- 

 blance would point to their being modifications of a still older 

 form of rosette, viz., that shown in No. 31, Fig. 59. How then did 

 this more ancient form of rosette originate ? by natural selection 

 or what ? 



Before I attempt to reply to this question in my own way, I 

 would like to show how others have looked at it. 



Dr. Wallace, in Darwinism, p. 288, says that Mr. Tylor * called 

 attention to an important principle which underlies the various 

 patterns or ornamental markings of animals, viz., that diversified 

 coloration follows the chief lines of structure, and changes at 



1 Coloration in Animals and Plants. 



