236 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



which should ensure the book a welcome in every library, where 

 it may be of use to students of evolution as well as to the much 

 smaller class to whom it would seem especially to appeal. 

 Colonel Eoosevelt, for instance, although quite able to see the 

 utility of protective coloration in certain cases, is strongly 

 opposed to the school which see it everywhere and give it 

 exclusive survival value, and his treatment of the subject may 

 be well exemplified in the following passages, dealing not with 

 African animals but with forms more familiar in our own fauna. 



After quoting the theory that the white-spotted coats of the 

 Fallow and Axis Deer are protective in their environment of 

 sun-flecked woodland, and that such spotted patterns evolve into 

 self-colours when they " fail to serve any useful end," he says: — 

 " If only the Fallow Deer and Axis were considered, it would 

 seem convincing. But it breaks down completely when other 

 Deer, the majority of Deer, are considered ; for although they 

 still live in the cover afforded by vegetation, and are descended 

 from spotted forms, the adults, in the large majority of the 

 species, have lost their spots. Take the abundant and widely- 

 spread white-tailed Deer of America, which, in its various forms* 

 extends from the northern isotherm marking the northern range 

 of the Fallow Deer to the tropics, between the isotherms in 

 which the Axis dwells. The fawns are spotted ; doubtless the 

 adult ancestral Whitetails were spotted ; the Whitetails live now 

 in just such cover as do the Fallow Deer and Axis ; and yet 

 they have lost their spots and are solid-coloured above. It 

 seems incredible that natural selection can be responsible for 

 both of two such diametrically opposite results ; and, of course, 

 if being spotted tends to conceal the Deer, then the loss of the 

 spots cannot have been due to natural selection making for a 

 concealing coloration. This is self-evident. The Bed Deer, 

 which lives in the same country as the Fallow Deer, and the 

 Sambur, which lives in the same country as the Axis, have 

 also both lost their spots in the adult forms. All these Deer 

 have substantially the same foes ; Wolves or Wild Dogs and the 

 big Cats. If a spotted coat really is concealing, then surely 

 natural selection ought not to have eliminated it in the great 

 majority of the Deer, as it has actually done." 



The above passage well illustrates the philosophical manner 



