46 COLIN CLOUT'S CALENDAR. 



morella. So, too, among flowers, we may compare the 

 'almost accidental pinkiness of the rays in a daisy with 

 the full rich purple of a cineraria. These intermediate 

 cases help perhaps to show us how colour first begins to 

 gather in some particular part, and so forms the ground- 

 work upon which selective action may gradually be 

 exerted. It is not difficult to see how the first few faint 

 streaks of red may begin to dapple the cheek of a 

 ripening fruit, just as they dapple the surface of autumn 

 leaves ; and yet when that step has once been taken, it 

 is easy to fancy the subsequent stages by which the 

 colour becomes intensified from year to year, through 

 the constant preference shown by the animal allies of 

 the species for the most conspicuous fruits. In the end, 

 alike with berries and with blossoms, the colouring, 

 which began by being accidental and indefinite, finishes 

 by being perfectly definite and regular. 



