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642 The Colors of Animals and Plants. —[ November, 
man would, sooner or later, find out and enjoy every beauty that 
the hidden recesses. of the earth have in store for him. This 
theory received great support from the difficulty of conceiving 
any other use or meaning in the colors with which so many nat- 
ural objects are adorned. Why should the homely gorse be 
clothed in golden raiment, and the prickly cactus be adorned 
with crimson bells? Why should our fields be gay with butter- 
cups, and the heather-clad mountains ke clad in purple robes? 
Why should every land produce its own peculiar floral gems, and 
the Alpine rocks glow with beauty, if not for the contemplation 
and enjoyment of man? What could be the use to the butterfly 
of its gayly-painted wings, or to the humming-bird of its jeweled 
breast, except to add the final touches to a world picture, caleu- 
lated at once to please and to refine mankind? And even now, 
with all our recently acquired knowledge of this subject, who 
shall say that these old-world views were not intrinsically and 
fundamentally sound, and that although we now know that 
color has “ uses” in nature that we little dreamed of, yet the 
relation of those colors to our senses and emotions may be an- 
other and perhaps more important use which they subserve in 
the great system of the universe ? 
We now propose to lay before our readers a general account 
of the more recent discoveries on this interesting subject, and, m 
doing so, it will be necessary, first, to give an outline of the more 
important facts as to the colors of organized beings; then, to 
point out the cases in which it has been shown that color is of 
use; and, lastly, to endeavor to throw some light on its nature 
and the general laws of its development. 
Among naturalists color was long thought to be of little 
port, and to be quite untrustworthy as a specific character. The 
numerous cases of variability of color led to this view. The occur- 
rence of white blackbirds, white peacocks, and black leopards, of 
im- 
white bluebells, and of white, blue, or pink milkworts led to the. 
belief that color was essentially unstable; that it could moe 
be of little or no importance, and belonged to quite a differen 
class of characters from form or structure. But it now begins 
to be perceived that these cases, though tolerably numerous, = 
after all, exceptional, and that color, as a rule, ig A o0 
character. The great majority of species, both of animals and o 
plants, are each distinguished by peculiar tints which pa 
little, while the minutest markings are often constant in 
sands or millions of individuals. All our field buttereups a? 3 
