CHAPTER IX 
PARENTAL COLOUR 
A comparison of the colour of parents and 
young shows, that whereas young are almost 
invariably protectively coloured, parents are 
not uncommonly conspicuously coloured. 
This difference in colour is explained by some, 
who say that the protective colouring of young 
animals is the colour of their aneestors, which 
they must assume ,during development, be- 
cause development reproduces the ancestry 
of the species: and who say that protective 
colouring must therefore be assumed, whether 
beneficial or not: and who look upon the 
conspicuous colouring of many adults as a 
more recent added character. 
There is no doubt that an animal, during 
development, does reproduce its ancestry, but 
then there is no evidence that it must do so. 
Not all the characters of its ancestors are 
retained, but only a few : and of the few, many 
do not attain to as high a development as 
