APPENDICES 411 



Principle of Nature's had not been mistaken for " colour - 

 protection." I refer to the general assimilation of creatures 

 to their environment the "Influence of Environment" a 

 principle which does not necessarily involve " protection " 

 at all. 



Nearly thirty years ago, in Wild Spaing I pointed out 

 certain inconsistencies of this theory in relation to specific 

 instances. A kindly critic (I think it was Grant Allen) 

 chastened youthful presumption as it were questioning a fiat 

 of Darwin. Meekly I accepted the rebuke and have not 

 " erred " since. But all the time I have felt not only that my 

 facts were correct beyond dispute, but also that Darwin had 

 never stated the reverse, nor sanctioned the mountainous mass 

 of poetic nonsense that, since his day, has been ever accum- 

 ulating on totally inadequate foundations. For that, it is not 

 Darwin who is responsible but the speculative writer at second- 

 hand who, .with brilliant pen (but witho.ut field-experience), 

 expands and embroiders Darwin's more simple nucleus. Darwin 

 drew his inspirations from the field as well as from the study, 

 and here is one thing he did say : " As the accumulation of 

 isolated facts is apt to become uninteresting, so the habit of 

 comparison leads to generalisation . . . hence arises, as I have 

 found to my cost, a constant tendency to fill up the wide gaps 

 of knowledge by inaccurate and superficial hypotheses " ( Voyage 

 of "Beagle," p. 506). 



None can ever fill those gaps ; but my own conclusions 

 based on half a lifetime's attention to the subject, in many 

 climes and under all conditions by day and night lead me to 

 believe that "colour-protection" (though undoubtedly a minor 

 component among Nature's schemes) is yet so* limited in scope 

 and so constricted in operation, that for the purposes of this 

 chapter I propose to deny its existence. That is, to presume 

 ad hoc its non-existence ; to start with a "clean slate," and then 

 to examine the comparatively trifling number of cases in which 

 the principle is operative. 



In order to clear the decks and avoid the manifold pitfalls 

 and deceptions in which this question has become enshrouded 



1 Wild Spain, by Abel Chapman and Walter Buck, 1892, pp. 112-15. 

 After three decades I cannot alter or improve the passages cited, and would 

 beg readers who possess that book to refer to them. 



