ENVIRONMENT AND THE INDIVIDUAL 207 



lives escape them. Even our colour may be 

 affected by our surroundings. An Englishman 

 not only loses his ruddiness of complexion in the 

 tropics : his skin may be darkened, apart from 

 sunburn, by the development of a pigment which 

 has become an hereditary peculiarity of the 

 coloured races. Naturalists have collected many 

 instances of the changing of colour by environ- 

 ment. An Arctic fox, kept in a warm room, has 

 been known to resist its hereditary impulse to 

 turn its fur white during the winter months. 

 The chrysalides of some butterflies will reflect 

 the colour with which the caterpillars were 

 surrounded at the time of their metamorphosis. 

 Alpine plants transferred to the lowlands by the 

 botanist Nageli changed their habit of growth, 

 but reverted to their original type when retrans- 

 f erred to the mountains. The closeness of the 

 connection between an individual and its en- 

 vironment is shown by the exceedingly narrow 

 limits within which many plants and animals are 

 localized. Their haunts may not be distinguished 

 by any unusual abundance of food. This pecu- 

 liarity may be noticed amongst British butter- 

 flies : the Adonis blue will not stray beyond the 

 limits of a few favoured fields : the Lulworth 

 skipper only occurs at the place from which it 

 takes its name. 



' /..:;'- 



With mankind, at all events, environment affects 

 mental disposition as well as physique. Some peo- 

 ples take an optimistic, others a pessimistic view of 

 life. There is a gulf between the active hopefulness 

 of the Englishman and the passive endurance of 

 the Hindu. We may ascribe this difference to pecu- 

 liarities of race or climate, but may find a contri- 

 buting factor in scenery, the effect of which is 



