224 Prof. W. C. M‘Intosh on the 
protection, but it seems to have been overlooked that many of 
the surface-animals are there only for a limited period during 
fine weather, and disappear into the depths on the advent of 
storms and cold. Moreover, not a few of the forms disporting 
themselves at the surface are conspicuously coloured—for 
example, the jellyfishes *. 
Protective coloration, by which is meant that hue in harmony 
with the surroundings, and which, for instance, causes a very 
young leveret on the approach of danger instinctively to leave 
the green sward and crouch on the brown earth to escape obser- 
vation, reaches its acme in the transparent tissues of the jelly- 
fishes. There are, however, many exceptions, and even the 
most transparent forms by-and-by develop opaque bands (the 
ovaries and spermaries) just when the existence of the organism 
is most valuable. The brightly coloured forms again, such 
as Oceania, Pelagia, Velella, Porpita, and many others, which 
follow precisely the same habits as the uncoloured and trans- 
parent, raise doubts as to the validity of the interpretation so 
generally accepted. These doubts, indeed, find expression in 
Prof. Moseley’s remark that deep blue forms are so coloured 
for protection. Deep blue jellyfishes, however, form but a 
small proportion of the vast numbers found in the ocean. 
Neither are the varied hues of any advantage as warning 
colours, for the brightly coloured and the translucent (as 
Beddard remarks) are equally palatable to whales and other 
forms (not excepting man) utilizing them for food. The 
pelagic sea-anemones are also coloured, and the floating stages 
of others (Arachnactis) are often tinted with white and 
ellow. 
The brilliant colours of anemones in general cannot be said 
to be either protective or warning, since on the one hand 
there is no more deadly bait for cod, and on the other many 
small fishes swim in comfort in tanks amongst anemones, 
and in the China Sea a red fish takes shelter in the stomach 
of an anemone two feet across. Anemones for the most part 
seem to defy protective coloration, as is sufficiently proved by 
a glance in the rocky caverns on the eastern shores or along 
the creeks of the west, where the olive-green tangle-blades 
and other seaweeds are studded with the opelet (Anthea cereus), 
whose long trailing tentacles, with their hues of green and red, 
wave with every surge of the tide. The view that the gaudy 
* Beddard observes :—“ If transparency of pelagic organisms, according 
to Darwin, be due entirely to Natural Selection, it is remarkable that 
there is so little modification in this direction amongst the species in- 
habiting the bottom” (op. ert. p. 126). He is inclined to think that 
protective resemblance may be due to other causes than Natural Selection. 
