How Theories are Manufactured 87 



few days ago I went up into the high woods ; there 

 are primaeval forests, with all the luxuriance of vegeta- 

 tion one expects to meet in a tropical forest. I can 

 safely say that in the course of many hours' walking I 

 did not see one spot of bright colour. The tall trees, 

 which exclude all sunshine, and the vegetation below, 

 are of every possible shade of green, but that is all. Up 

 to the edge of the forest, in the ' bush,' many wild flowers 

 are now in bloom; but none of them are brilliant in 

 colour much less so than our English wild flowers: 

 most of them are of a pale yellow, or washed-out lilac, 

 almost grey. Every day I see Humming-birds feeding 

 from flowers of a dull colour; up in the woods I saw 

 many Parrots of a species peculiar to the island; their 

 plumage is very bright, of the gaudy order of parrotdom, 

 and at no time of the year can their surroundings help 

 them to keep up their style of plumage. These are 

 almost the only bright-coloured birds, except perhaps 

 the Golding, a sort of heron, which is found in dark 

 marshy bits by the rivers. The birds in the cultivated 

 parts, where there are gardens and more show of colour, 

 are almost all of dull hue." 



From all this, it would appear, that our safest method 

 will be to stick to our own landscape, about which we 

 know something, and not wander off into tropical forests 

 in quest of data for our hypotheses ; though, as we shall 

 presently see, no object is so common and homely but 

 that it may, in the interests of theory, be made the 

 subject of a fairy tale. To pursue our researches, there- 

 fore, at home. After what Mr. Wallace has told us, we 

 may, I think, conclude that in spite of the "bright 

 orange and blue and crimson fruits in tropical forests " l 

 nothing to be found there can compare with a Rowan- 

 tree 2 in September, ladened with masses of coral-red 

 berries. Yet what has been made of this glorious oppor- 

 tunity for colour education by the birds we find there 

 the Blackbird, the Ring-ousel, and the Missel-thrush? 



1 Vignettes from Nature, p. 86. 

 2 Or Mountain Ash. 



