LEAF AND TENDRIL 



I think it highly probable that our bluebird is a 

 descendant of a thrush. The speckled breast of the 

 young bird indicates this, as does a thrush-like 

 note which one may occasionally hear from it. The 

 bird departed^ from the protective livery of the 

 thrush and came down its long line of descent in 

 a showy coat of blue, and yet got on just as weU as 

 its ancestors. Gay plumes were certainly no handi- 

 cap in this case. Are they in any case ? I seriously 

 doubt it. In fact, I am inclined to think that if the 

 birds and the mammals of the earth had been of all 

 the colors of the rainbow, they would be just about 

 as numerous. 



The fact tha,t this assimilative coloring disap- 

 pears in the case of animals under domestication, 

 — that the neutral grays and browns are followed by 

 white and black and particolored animals, — what 

 does that prove? It proves only that the order of 

 Nature has been interfered with, and that as wild 

 instinct becomes demoralized under domestication, 

 so does the wild coloration of animals. The con- 

 ditions are changed, numberless new influences are 

 brought to bear, the food is changed and is of 

 greater variety, climatic influences are interfered 

 with, multitudes of new and strange impressions 

 are made upon each individual animal, and Nature 

 abandons her uniformity of coloration and becomes 

 reckless, so to speak, not because the pressure of 

 danger is removed, but because the danger is of a 



