ON COLOURS IN NATURE. 103 
interesting if it could be conclusively shown that the fre- 
quently different colours of the beard and whiskers to that of 
the hair could be traced in any degree to the fact that the 
former are exposed to the full light when the latter is for 
the most part covered by the hat; for if my observation 
is correct, the hair may be dark, and the beard of a 
lighter tint; or again the hair may be light and sandy, 
and the beard of a more reddish tint, or the hair and beard 
may be alike dark, or the hair and beard alike lght, 
and alike red; but what one does not, at any rate, com- 
monly see is the beard darker than the hair, or the hair 
redder than the beard; so that the fiery tint may, to some 
extent, be caused by the unimpeded action of the sun, which 
likewise develops red patches of pigment, whatever the 
chemical nature of that pigment be, in the complexion. One 
must not, at the same time, forget that a good deal of the 
perception of colour is purely relative to the individual, and 
may present a very different appearance to a different order of 
created beings, as man has no inherent dislike to bright red 
or scarlet, such as the bull and turkey-cock invariably exhibit, 
and the glass-stained bright yellow to our eyes would appear, 
from Sir John Lubbock’s experiments, to be correspondingly 
dark to the vision of the ants, which immediately began re- 
moving their eggs to a spot beneath the said glass. And the 
first instinct of these creatures, when their nest is disturbed, 
is to seize and carry off their young to some dark and inner 
part of the nest as yet untouched, and to preclude them from 
curious observation, so that if the same tint affects the optic 
uerves of human beings and of ants in so contrary a manner, 
either the ants or we, or both, must be colour blind. Animals 
indeed are far more powerfully affected by colour, or more 
strictly speaking, by the want of colour than by the time of 
day, just as I have noticed domestic fowls go to roost at four 
or five in the afternoon on the approach of the dusk of a 
winter’s evening, and similarly to seek their perches while the 
earth, in full daylight, was temporarily darkened by an 
eclipse. If the power of the eyes of several flies be as that 
of a magnifying lens consisting of many facets, why may not 
also subtle gradations of colour, such as the human eye could 
. never distinguish, be thoroughly perceived by these lower 
creatures, just as there is reason for supposing that their 
sense of hearing and that of smell are far keener than those 
possessed by man? I should be glad, in conclusion, to 
mention a few instances of colours in nature that I have 
witnessed, and which may not, perhaps, have come under the 
