ARMOUR-PLATING AND SKIN PICTURES 159 



Indeed, Professor Parker 1 has shown that in the embryo of the 

 Pangolin the scales are nothing but matted hairs, and the inter- 

 vening spaces are also covered with hairs, so that the substitute for 

 bone and horn armour, in mammals, seems to be hair or wool. 



The description of spotting phenomena in animals by words is 

 a feeble thing compared with illustrations by photography, but to 

 photograph every modification would require a library, and not 

 one book. 



The general colouring of a mammal is of little importance, 

 because we know that this varies very much ; but if the markings 

 are constant, though the general colour changes, we must infer that 

 they have a different and a deeper meaning than the general 

 colouring. 



In Pigeons, the wing-bars very often remain, although the 

 general colouring may vary ad infinitum. There are grey and also 

 cream-coloured Pigeons with brown bars, and blue Pigeons with 

 black bars, and so forth. And Dr. Wallace mentions 2 that in the 

 skirts of the forests on the Amazon, and in the larger ' ilhas,' both 

 the black and spotted Jaguars are often found. By black, I 

 presume he means the melanoid variety with distinct rosettes, 

 which can readily be distinguished in certain lights. We see a 

 similar persistence of markings in the Snow Leopard, although the 

 ground colour has changed to white. 3 



From all this persistence of markings, as something distinct 

 from the general colour, I would infer that the markings have a 

 deeper meaning than the general colour, and the meaning I would 

 attribute to these persistent markings in mammals is that they 

 have been inherited from much more remote ancestors than those 



1 Mammalian Descent. 2 Travels on the Amazon, p. 63. 



3 In the Tring Museum I saw two varieties of Snow Leopards ; (a) with ocellated 

 rosettes, and (b) with a large number of the rosettes solid, especially on the shoulders, 

 haunches, and lower flanks. 



