Sketches from Nature. 319 



there is a general harmony between the colours 

 of an animal and those of its habitation, of 

 which fact almost every living natural object 

 furnishes evidence. 



There comes periodically to this country a bird 

 of the starling kind, known as the rose-coloured 

 pastor. It has the back, breast, and sides of an 

 exquisite pale pink ; and it is perhaps this bright 

 plumage which prevents* it from establishing a resi- 

 dence here. In its continental haunts the bird is 

 observed to affect trees or shrubs bearing rose- 

 coloured flowers, such as the blossoms of the 

 pink azalea, among which the birds more easily 

 escape notice. This is an instance of what 

 is known as adaptive or protective coloration, 

 which we need not go abroad to observe. 



The struggle for existence among plants and 

 animals is a hard one, and every point gained in 

 the direction tends to survival. The modifica- 

 tion in the forms and colours of insects, and the 

 successful shifts thereby made to elude their 

 enemies, provide the striking facts of the case. 

 Birds modify and rearrange the colours of their 

 plumage, adapt the coloration 'of their eggs, and 

 the structure and material of their nests, all to the 

 same end. We know that the more highly or- 

 ganised flowers have changed form and colour to 

 satisfy their insect visitors, while the insects 

 themselves have modified their organs so as to 

 enable them the better to visit certain flowers. 



