THE DESCENT OF MAN 



ary sexual characters; these being likewise due to sexual 

 selection. 



Quadrupeds manifestly take notice of color. Sir S. Baker 

 repeatedly observed that the African elephant and rhinoc- 

 eros attacked white or gray horses with special fury. I 

 have elsewhere shown'" that half-wild horses apparently 

 prefer to pair with those of the same color, and that herds 

 of fallow-deer of different colors, though living together, 

 have long kept distinct. It is a more significant fact that 

 a female zebra would not admit the addresses of a male ass 

 until he was painted so as to resemble a zebra, and then, 

 as John Hunter remarks, "she received him very readily. 

 In this curious fact we have instinct excited by mere color, 

 which had so strong an effect as to get the better of every- 

 thing else. But the male did not require this; the female 

 being an animal somewhat similar to himself was sufficient 

 to rouse him." " 



In an earlier chapter we have seen that the mental powers 

 of the higher animals do n^t differ in kind, though greatly 

 in degree, from the corresponding powers of man, especially 

 of the lower and barbarous races; and it would appear that 

 even their taste for the beautiful is not widely different from 

 that of the Quadrumana. As the negro of Africa raises the 

 flesh on his face into parallel ridges "or cicatrices, high 

 above the natural surface, which unsightly deformities are 

 considered great personal attractions" "—as negroes and 

 savages in many parts of the world paint their faces with 

 red, blue, white, or black bars — so the male mandrill of 

 Africa appears to have acquired his deeply furrowed and 

 gaudily colored face from having been thus rendered attrac- 

 tive to the female. No doubt it is to us a most grotesque 

 notion that the posterior end of the body should be colored 



" "The Tariation of Animals and Plants under Domestication," 1868, 

 Tol. ii. pp. 102, 103. 



** "Essays and Observations by J. Hunter," edited by Owen, 1861, vol. i, 

 p. 194. 



" Sir S. Baker, "The Nile Tributaries of Abvawnia," 1861. 



