SEXUAL SELECTION 701 



as a protection to tlie animal while wandering through the 

 leafless thickets, sprinkled with snow and hoarfrost. If the 

 above-named animals were gradually to extend their range 

 into regions perpetually covered with snow, their pale win- 

 ter coats would probably be rendered, through natural selec- 

 tion, whiter and whiter, until they became as white as snow. 



Mr. Reeks has given me a curious instance of an animal 

 profiting by being peculiarly colored. He raised from fifty 

 to sixty white and brown piebald rabbits in a large walled 

 orchard, and he had at the same time some similarly col- 

 ored cats in his house. Such cats, as I have often noticed, 

 are very conspicuous during day ; but as they used to lie in 

 watch during the dusk at the mouths of the burrows, the 

 rabbits apparently did not distinguish them from their party- 

 colored brethren. The result was that, within eighteen 

 months, every one of these party-colored rabbits was 

 destroyed; and there was evidence that this was effected 

 by the cats. Color seems to be advantageous to another 

 animal, the skunk, in a manner of which we have had 

 many instances in other classes. No animal will volun- 

 tarily attack one of these creatures, on account of the 

 dreadful odor which it emits when irritated; but during 

 the dusk it would not easily be recognized, and might be 

 attacked by a beast of prey. Hence it is, as Mr. Belt be- 

 lieves," that the skunk is provided with a great white 

 bushy tail, which serves as a conspicuous warning. 



Although we must admit that many quadrupeds have 

 received their present tints either as a protection or as an 

 aid in procuring prey, yet with a host of species the colors 

 are far too conspicuous and too singularly arranged to allow 

 us to suppose that they serve for these purposes. "We may 

 take as an illustration certain antelopes ; when we see the 

 square white patch on the throat, the white marks on 

 the fetlocks, and the round black spots on the ears, all 

 more distinct in the male of the Portax picta than in the 



" "The Naturalist in Nicaragua," p. 249. 



