ASSIMILATIVE COLOURATION. 383 
Turtle, another in the Dog, another in the Lizard, and so on 
through nearly all living things. A man would eat freely of © 
what was regarded as the incarnation of the god of another man, 
but the incarnation of his own god he would consider it death to 
injure or to eat. And so it is with our own theoretical bantlings; 
surely they must live whatever else may perish. As Lecky has 
remarked of earlier days of the Church: ‘‘ Whenever a saint was 
canonized it was necessary to prove that he had worked miracles” ; 
it would appear now, that to be famous as a naturalist, one must 
be at least original in theory. 
There seems at present a danger of being too conclusive, as 
though the study of animal life is only advanced by the promulga- 
tion of new views that shall be canonized by a more or less 
general acceptance; that the observing must be combined with 
the inventing faculty ; that to be behind a theory is to be behind 
the knowledge of the day. On the other hand, there lurks an 
Opinion, even in powerful and highly qualified quarters, that to 
suggest a new interpretation of natural phenomena without the 
most absolute appeal to scientific verification is a deadly sin; 
that theory is heresy ; and that the “romance” of natural history 
is only expounded by the cautious systematist. Safety seems 
only possible in the almost forlorn hope of clearing these intel- 
lectual Scylla and Charybdis, these opposing schools who both 
see it all clare et distincte. 
If we seek to understand animal colouration, the knowledge 
will scarcely be acquired from the facts to be derived from the 
world as we know it. As recently remarked: ‘‘ But we must 
remember that such protective resemblances—if in reality they 
exist—are of very ancient date; and that in the early days of 
mammalian life on the earth the warm-blooded quadrupeds were 
an exceedingly feeble folk when compared with contemporary 
birds and reptiles. It is therefore quite possible that many of 
the characteristic markings upon creatures living to-day—which 
are often so difficult to explain—are mere vestiges of a state of 
affairs which existed in very ancient times, and which demanded 
special means of protection.” * If the earliest forms of life are 
to be sought only in an ancient geological record, it is also in 
that phase of animal existence that the beginnings of colouration 
* Louis Robinson, ‘ Wild Traits in Tame Animals,’ p. 243. 
