COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



so great that the fate of each creature must often 

 depend upon apparently trivial circumstances. 

 The explanation would therefore be satisfactory, 

 even if protective shades of colouring could be 

 regarded as circumstances of slight importance, 

 — which they cannot. 



Since, therefore, it is natural selection which 

 keeps up the protective hues of animals, by 

 kilHng off all save the least conspicuous indi- 

 viduals, we may understand why it is that ani- 

 mals which have for several generations been 

 domesticated no longer retain, without consid- 

 erable deviation, their protective style of col- 

 ouring. Freed from the exigencies of wild life, 

 there is no longer an imperious need for con- 

 cealment, and hence the unfavourably coloured 

 individuals survive like the rest, and variety 

 appears among members of the same species. 

 In the cat family, which appears to have been 

 originally arboreal, there is a strong tendency 

 to the production of stripes and spots. In the 

 lion, which is not arboreal, and in the puma, 

 owing to the peculiarity above mentioned, these 

 variegated markings have been almost wholly 

 weeded out by natural selection.^ But in the 

 domestic cat, along with these spots and stripes 



* The variegated marking usually appears, however, in lion- 

 cubs ; thus showing that the variegated colouring of the leopard 

 and tiger is relatively primary, while the monotonous colour- 

 ing of the adult lion is relatively secondary. 



34 



