INTRODUCTION xxix 



they would not have the same plan of skeleton, and the same 

 apparatus for nursing their young. 



Besides nervous, circulatory, and other structural features, which 

 mammals have also in common, there are dermic features which, I 

 think, have not been hitherto sufficiently recognised by biologists 

 as indications of derivation. I mean the markings on the exterior 

 of mammals. Of course every one knows that Leopards and 

 Spotted Cats are allied, but probably few suspect that the spots 

 on Leopards may indicate a distinct derivation from animals 

 which have no spots. I don't mean with Lions and Pumas and 

 other individuals of the Cat tribe, but with animals wholly distinct 

 from these, and even with certain extinct animals. 



In works of comparative anatomy, professors show that the 

 internal structures of mammals — bone for bone, muscle for muscle 

 — are identical. Then whence comes all this diiference of ex- 

 ternal surface? How comes it that the Leopard is rosetted, the 

 Cheetah spotted, the Tiger and Zebra striped in one direction, 

 while the Ocelot is striped in another direction, and so forth? 

 Evolutionists declare that these external colours and markings 

 have been brought about by adaptation to surroundings. In the 

 following pages I have discussed what modification of this theory 

 is, in my judgment, needed in order to make it conformable to all 

 the facts that I shall place before the reader. 



When we first begin to study the spotting and striping of 

 animals, they seem a chaos of markings, unregulated by any laws ; 

 but by degrees we become aware that there is some method in the 

 whole phenomenon, and the markings of one animal can be seen 

 to be derived from those of another, just as in the skeleton we see 

 each bone to be derived from that of an ancestor. If not all, most 

 of the spotted and striped mammals, more especially the carnivora, 

 are reducible more or less to one plan of origin. 



