LECTURE V 



THE COLOURS OF ANIMALS AND PLANTS 



So universal and universally acknowledged are the 

 power and charm of colour, and so accustomed are 

 we to associate bright colours with health, happiness, 

 and merriment, and gloomy colours with misfortune, 

 evil, or with death, that we are apt tacitly or ex- 

 plicitly to assume that the existence of colour is 

 sufficiently explained by the pleasure it gives us ; 

 that the exquisite and varied colours of butterflies, 

 birds, and flowers, for instance, are developed and 

 acquired for our special enjoyment. But this is not 

 so, and the poet has warned us that this explanation 

 is not enough, for " full many a flower is born to 

 blush unseen, and waste its sweetness on the desert 

 air." These lines man, in his supreme conceit, 

 usually interprets as an expression of a half-con- 

 temptuous pity for the unfortunate flower which fails 

 to meet his lordly eye, and so wastes alike its beauty 

 and its sweetness. The poet Gray is, however, quite 

 right, and there is something to be explained, as a 

 moment's consideration will show us. 



Birds and insects are the most gorgeously- coloured 

 animals, and many of the most brightly-coloured are 

 inhabitants of parts of South and Central America, 



