14 WILD TRAITS IN TAME ANIMALS. 



and one finds that Nature has adapted herself to 

 this state of things by making most fruits of con- 

 spicuous colours. Although this may partly ex- 

 plain why man and all the apes have the organ of 

 smell so very slightly developed, it is plain that 

 hereditary vegetarianism will not fully account for 

 their olfactory poverty. For we find that very 

 many graminivorous animals — such as antelopes, 

 deer, wild horses, and wild cattle — have an ex- 

 ceedingly acute power of scent, and can detect 

 the approach of an invisible enemy at several 

 hundred yards' distance. But a little thought will 

 show that the life of a creature livino; hig-h in the 

 trees is never threatened by a foe approaching 

 stealthily from afar off, and hence such a means of 

 protection is unnecessary. And, moreover, in such 

 a situation this sense would be very untrustworthy, 

 for air among the tree-tops moves in eddies and 

 veering gusts, owing to the continual obstructions 

 it meets with, and hence would not tell the direc- 

 tion from which the taint of danger came. Now 

 when man left his trees and his vegetarianism 

 behind him and became an amateur carnivore, 

 there was this great distinction between him and 

 the predatory beasts whose habits he was imitat- 

 ing — viz., that whereas they were able both to 



