SPOTTED AND STRIPED MAMMALS 



25 



petal ; and, finally, in others every trace of blotctiing or spotting 

 disappears, and the whole flower is white, with a little lemon-colour 

 on the lip. In the Dictionary of Gardening it is stated that ' it 

 is a plant which varies to an almost endless extent, no two of the 

 many thousands imported being perhaps exactly alike.' 



Fig. 14. — [a] Young and [b] Adult of Spotted Deer (Axis muculatiis, Xat. Hist. Mus.). 



Not impossibly, also, the stretching of the skin as the animal 

 grows may, in some instances, tend to modify the grouping of the 

 spots, and have something to do with dissociation. On the other 

 hand, contraction of the skin in other regions may have something 

 to do with consolidation of rosettes. 



Perhaps, in illustration of the former conditions, one might take 

 the case of the Spotted Deer shown in outline in Fig. 14. The 



