INTERESTING FEATURES IN HORSES, ETC. i8i 



The still remaining spots on the lips and round the eyes suggest 

 to my mind that these parts also, in some ancestral form, were 

 encased in plates. The anal sphincter-muscle may similarly have 

 required the absence of calcareous deposit. 



Then I should say that the early loss of armour round the eye, 

 round the mouth and vent, and also from the hands and feet, parts 

 acquiring great mobility in the struggle for life, is the reason why, 

 in the higher animals, these parts are so often contrasted in colour. 

 The early loss of armour gave those parts the opportunity of 

 becoming variously pigmented long before the rest of the body had 

 become uncarapaced. The base of the ears, and the lower parts, such 

 as those of the neck, abdomen, and tail, would follow the same rule. 



That is, they lost their armour, replacing it by hair, long before 

 the other parts of the body lost theirs ; and therefore they had 

 time to alter their coloration before the parts with which they are 

 contrasted had become armourless. 



As shown in another place, we see frequent examples of altera- 

 tions in hair colour on parts occupied by hairless skin-structures 

 which became subsequently suppressed. The most convincing 

 examples of this are the tufts of differently coloured hair which 

 have replaced the callosities on the legs of certain ruminants (see 

 Fig. 85). From a minute study of animal coloration, it seems 

 clear that small portions of the skin can alter independently of 

 adjacent surfaces, or without the coloration of the whole surface 

 becoming altered. 



But if we are anxious of being thoroughly convinced that this 

 ancestral loss of armour in certain parts is a vera causa of the con- 

 trasts of pigments in their existing descendants, we should visit 

 the Pangolins in the Natural History Museum. 



There we find that the Malayan Pangolin {Manis Javanica), 

 and the long-eared Pangolin (Manis Auritd), have no scales on 



