144 STUDIES IN THE EVOLUTION OF ANIMALS 



The reader should understand that, as in the case of spotting, 

 innumerable modifications have occurred, through which, in many 

 cases, the sharp line of demarcation, between the ancestral armoured 

 and unarmoured surfaces, has been toned down into a graduated 

 passage from the dark dorsal to the light ventral colouring. 



This theory, however, should not be driven too far, for it will 

 not account for every single hair that may be differently pig- 

 mented ; but I think it will account for the general colouring and 

 spotting more satisfactorily than the older light theory. Then 

 human selection of animals under domestication, and natural 

 selection of animals in a wild state, will account for the vast 

 number of modifications we see in the coloration of animals. 



I would ask the reader to glance at Fig. 72. Nothing, to my 

 mind, can be plainer than, the tale its coloration and spotting 

 suggest regarding its descent, in spite of the great modification its 

 legs and its digestive apparatus have undergone to fit it for 

 surroundings totally different from those of its ancestors. Its 

 partially edentate upper jaw seems to tell a similar story. This 

 Deer would seem to say, ' My spots are the vestiges of ancestral 

 armour-plating, and that fringe you see on my flank is the vestige 

 of the fringe of differently-shaped plates which form the margin ot 

 the Glyptodon's carapace.' 



No one could look at the picture of Mellivora Indica in Mr. 

 Blanford's Mammalia of India (Fig. 46), without seeing in its well- 

 defined grey back a strong resemblance to a carapace ; and the 

 picture-carapace of Putorius sarmaticus (Fig. 41), is still more 

 striking, as its vestigial carapace still retains the vestigial spotting 

 of its ancestral bone-rosettes. 



Even the sheep in the London parks seem to tell you, * My 

 fleece is the substitute of my ancestor's carapace. In those days, 

 my ancestor's face, ears, hands, and feet, were unarmoured, and now 



