76 A NATURALIST IN THE TRANSVAAL. 



obtained by assimilative coloration! So perfect was the 

 illusion, that partly owing to the diminishing light I 

 failed to add it to my bag by a charge of shot. 



The longer I observed living nature in South Africa 

 the deeper became my impression that the colours and 

 habits of the animals and plants around me were, like 

 the geological contour of the country, a story of a by- 

 gone time. The colour of every feather, the appearance 

 of every seed-capsule, is due to causes which in many 

 cases are now almost inoperative. But it was then in 

 the dire struggle for existence, subsequent to the last 

 great geological change in the surface condition of the 

 earth, that those varieties of plants and animals only 

 survived which could in some way pass the severity of a 

 competitive examination by natural selection. Hence we 

 must not always expect to find a philosophical explanation 

 of the bizarre colours of animals and plants by simply 

 considering their present conditions of life. If it is 

 difficult to trace the evolution of a civilized community 

 of mankind, with its customs and superstitions, to its 

 primordial elements, many of which belong to a pre- 

 historic period, how gigantic is the task to attempt to go 

 behind the very evolution of man himself! and yet it was 

 at that time when the small birds and insignificant 

 insects obtained the maximum of their colour-markings, 

 not to add to the beauty of the scene, but to enable them 

 to survive an eliminating process which took place in the 

 great struggle for existence. Many of these gorgeous 

 living forms are to my mind fossils, of a past epoch 

 which we cannot read. 



