NOTES AND QUERIES. 331 



It must be particularly pointed out that in Mr. Distant's general 

 discussion of the subject he has most clearly suggested that the present 

 day colouring, which is classed by him as assimilative (in opposition 

 to adaptive) was only developed in the earliest geological epochs, and 

 prior to the first appearance of natural selection as an efficient factor — 

 according to his conception of that first appearance. Fortunately we are 

 able to obtain, from certain passages, some idea as to this conception, for 

 with regard to the Lias formation of the Jurassic Period (Mesozoic), when 

 the gigantic Enaliosaurians abounded, it is freely admitted that " Here we 

 see natural selection, with its iron and implacable rule, a real factor";* 

 and, further, in the later essays on " Mimicry," good cause is shown for 

 the recognition of the occurrence of natural selection so far back as the 

 Carboniferous Period in Palaeozoic times. 



But when we come to consider the examples adduced in support of the 

 above suggestion, we at once find that the fundamental proposition is 

 practically disregarded. A single instance will suffice. Referring to the 

 colouring of primitive mau, it is remarked that: "Their colour would 

 have been uniform, either derived from their more brutish ancestors, or , 

 possibly, a more assimilative colouration may have ensued to the soil on 

 which they walked."! It will be thus seen that the vast majority of 



* This quotation with its context is as follows : — " Thus, after a period 

 of animal evolution which may be computed by millions of years, and in 

 which fish abounded, perhaps not yet altogether under a severe stress of 

 selection and survival, the Mesozoic period arrives, when, in the words of 

 Oscar Schmidt, 'the Placoids and Ganoids, hitherto predominating in the 

 ocean almost without a foe, now found overwhelming enemies in the true 

 Sea-lizards or Enaliosaurians, especially the Ichthyosaura and Plesiosauria.' 

 Here we see natural selection, with its iron and implacable rule, a real factor 

 in the lives and development of these creatures, connected and increasing 

 with an advancing animal evolution, but still only a term to express the 

 modifying influences incidental to a struggle for existence" (pp. 388-9). — Ed. 



f Quotations are best unabridged. The following is as printed: — "As 

 De Quatrefages has remarked, ' The first men who peopled the centre of 

 human appearance must at first have differed from each other only in 

 individual features.' Their colour would have been uniform, either derived 

 from their more brutish ancestors, or possibly, as their habits became less 

 arboreal, a more assimilative colouration may have ensued to the soil on 

 which they walked" (p. 403). — Ed. 



A previous paragraph, not quoted, reads: "But although facts may be 

 found to support new suggestions, such as a possible original assimilative 

 colouration of man, the quest for such produces other recorded observations, 

 which, though not altogether contradictory to the view, still point to other 

 causes, support other conclusions, and reassert the problem we seek to solve " 

 (p. 400).— Ed. 



