1893.] Evolution in the Genus Megascops. 529 
The following table shows the data arranged by states, upon 
which the map (No. 2) of color distribution is based. The 
original letters had to be consulted in many cases as to the 
proper placing of the lines marking the several divisions; the 
table itself shows but two things: the areas where reds or 
grays are the exclusive form known, and where each predomi- 
nates in the mixture of the two; the finer distinctions it is of 
course impossible to show in tabular form. 
It will be remembered from quotations at the beginning, 
that the young produced by parents of different colors were 
said to be either all red, all gray, or both; that those produced 
by parents both of which were red were the same; this much 
is true, but not a single record can be found of the offsprings of a 
pair of gray birds showing the slightest trace of red. That the 
grays invariably breed true even in a region where red. is the 
predominating color, and where the individuals in question may 
themselves be the offspring of red parents, is of itself a strong point 
in support of the theory that the gray was the ancestral color. 
Further, taking into consideration that there are certain areas 
where a red bird is unknown, it is evident that the grays do 
certainly produce young the color of their parents; and that 
where we take the red birds over a very large area and find 
them continually producing gray birds together with red, and 
compare them with the gray birds which never produce a red ; it 
would appear that the gray bird was the original stock, and that 
the red was an offshoot—a branch, so to speak, which, owing to 
certain climatic conditions, or certain elements in the environ- 
ment, gave it the supremacy in the struggle for existence, and 
that the producing of gray birds by red parents is an evident 
tendency to revert to ancestral characters. Nor is that old 
maxim in natural history, natura non facit saltum to be ignored ; 
that natural selection played and is playing an important 
part in the matter is evident, else how came that area in 
which the grays are entirely absent? That the red birds 
were a ‘sport,’ or a freak, and suddenly acquired their charac- 
ters, is not to be supposed for a moment; but on the theory of 
‘reproduction with variation’ and ‘natural selection,’ I hold 
that some slight deviation from the parent stock did at one 
