716 REPORT— 1881. 



fertilised by means of insects, the plants most attractive to insects gaining ground 

 not only from thus having a more sure method of imiDregnation than the wind, but 

 also because the seedlings due to such cross fertilisation are the most vigorous. 

 Again, the colour-sense would become more and more perfect in insects, owing to 

 the advantage which improved colour-sense woidd give them in their search for 

 food, and these insects would have handed down this power to their insect descend- 

 ants now living. Similarly Grant-Allen believed colour-perception to have been 

 first aroused in simple marine animals by the animal organisms around them, and 

 to have been from them handed down to the fishes and reptiles, and more remotely 

 to the birds and ' mammals.' Man (the supposed descendant of fruit-eating quad- 

 rumana, who possessed colour-sense in a high degree) would thus have very perfect 

 colour-perception. This has been shown to be equally pronounced in all varieties 

 of the species, not only by the works of travellers and others respecting modern 

 savages, but by information received from missionaries. Government officials, and 

 others living among uncivilised races. That the colour-sense existed in am equally 

 developed condition in ancient times is probable, owing to the character of the 

 ancient monuments in Egypt, Assyria, and other parts, and to the traces of colour- 

 perception which exist in the Old Testament. Similarh' there are indications that 

 perception of colour e.xisted in the Bronze, and even in the Stone Age. Thus while 

 coloured ornaments and beads have been found in the Swiss lake-dwellings, which 

 are supposed to have belonged to the Bronze Age, stones remarkable for their 

 colour seem to have been chosen in the Stone age, not only for use but also for 

 ornament. Again observations made at the request of Holmgren upon various 

 savage tribes point to similar conclusions, and Hugo Magnus has therefore acknow- 

 ledged his previous conclusions not to be borne out by actual observation, admitting 

 that it is not safe to conclude from a deficiency of language that there exists a 

 corresponding deficiency of perception. 



The autlior then considered the value of the arguments brought forward, 

 showing that the arguments in favour of the gradual development of the colour- 

 sense in man within historic times were merely philological, and that obser- 

 vations among the unci^-ilised races now living had shown that the extent of the 

 colour-perception is not indicated by the variety of terms used to express it. The 

 fact that the most uncivilised savages had good colom'-perception, and the character 

 of the monuments in Mycenae, Assyria, and Egypt, which show how developed the 

 perception of colour was when they were built, pomt to the same conclusion, that 

 the colour-sense cannot have been gradually developed within the last few thousand 

 years. The same was shown by the Old Testament scriptures, while coloured 

 articles belonging to the Bronze or Stone Age indicated the existence of a good 

 coloiu'-sense in those times. Whatever therefore man had left Ijehind tended to 

 show that he had always possessed good colour- perception. As to its gradual 

 development in the animal kingdom, though colour-perception probably did become 

 more perfect in those insects which li^•ed upon coloured food and in marine animals 

 on account of the advantage, whether protective, attractive, or other which the 

 colour-sense would give them, there was no proof that this power was from the 

 latter ' banded down to the fishes and reptiles, and more remotely to the birds and 

 mammals.' The following conclusions were therefore arrived at — firstly, that in 

 man no such gradual de-\'elopment of the colour-sense could have taken place ; 

 secondly, that in animals, though it was not impossible that such might have 

 occurred, and that colour-perception might have reached its present condition by 

 the process of evolution, this statement had not been verified by actual observation. 



2. On the Function of the Two Ears in the Perception of Space. 

 By Professor Silvanus P. Thompson, B.A., D.Sc. 



The author remarked that the conceptions formed in our minds of the extension 

 of space might be resolved into two parts — first, the conception of distance 

 independent of direction ; and, secondly, the conception of direction independent of 

 distance. These conceptions were based upon the perceptions of three separate 



