Symmetry in Nature 
closely allied forms, reminds us forcibly of the 
sad case of the boy whose tailor was his mother. 
Humanum est errare: she made her son one 
pair of trousers that fastened up behind, so that 
the poor boy when wearing them never knew 
whether he was going to or coming home from 
school! If animals are able to recognise their 
mates, their bilateral symmetry does not seem 
necessary to enable them to distinguish their 
fellows from allied species. 
It is, indeed, true that asymmetrically marked 
animals are very rarely seen in the wild state, 
while they are the rule rather than the exception 
among domesticated species. But this appears 
to be due, not to the necessity of recognition 
markings in nature, but to the fact that those 
animals that display a tendency to massed pig- 
ment perish in the struggle for existence, since 
this massing of pigment appears to be correlated 
with weakness of constitution. In other words, 
this massing of pigment is an unfavourable varia- 
tion, which under natural conditions dooms its 
possessor. In the easier circumstances of domes- 
tication, animals which are irregularly pigmented 
are able to survive, so that, among them, the 
almost universal tendency to the massing of pig- 
ment can be followed without let or hindrance. 
It is unnecessary to say more upon this subject. 
The few facts we have set forth suffice to destroy 
this particularexcrescence on the Darwinian theory. 
R 257 
