458 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
adaptation. One of my friends who is not usually accustomed 
to pay special attention to such animals, told me that he had 
been much surprised to notice that on the two banks of a brook 
on which the soil was of different colours, the Grasshoppers were 
in each case exceedingly like the ground in colour. Without 
doubt these were Acridiwm germanicum or A. cerulescens,—the 
latter species appears to show the same adaptation.” * Canon 
Tristram in his North African travels met with an area of the 
limestone conglomerate with earlier pebbles, in which a fine white 
flint, not previously observed, predominated. Here, to use his 
own words, “‘ we found only two living things through the whole 
day—a curious white Scorpion, and a Desert Lark (Annomanes 
regulus, Bp.).” + In Kamschatka, where the ground is so long 
covered with snow, Mr. Guillemard, in comparing the Great and 
Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers, the Capercailzie, and the Marsh 
Tit, with the forms found in Europe, remarks: ‘‘In all these the 
differences consist for the most part in the greater predominance 
of white in the plumage, and this tendency to albidism is notice- 
able, as I have already mentioned, in other animals besides the 
birds ; the Dogs and Horses likewise showing it in a marked 
degree.” | Sometimes the effect may be very sudden and of an 
artificial character. It is difficult to explain the process as 
described by C. J. Andersson in South Africa:—‘‘In the course 
of the first day’s journey, we traversed an immense hollow, called 
Etosha, covered with saline incrustations, and having wooded 
and well-defined borders. Such places are in Africa designated 
‘salt-pans.’ The surface consisted of a soft greenish yellow 
* ‘Organic Evolution,’ Eng. transl., p. 146. Sometimes we have records 
of environmental changes in the colours of insects without corresponding 
particulars being given. These are still suggestive. Thus Gerard states in 
the ‘Dictionnaire d’Histoire naturelle’ of D’Orbigny (article ‘‘ Esyéce”’), 
‘that when the small brown Honey-bees from High Burgundy are trans- 
ported into Bresse—although not very distant—they soon become larger, 
and assume a yellow colour; this happens even in the second generation ” 
(cf. Varigny, ibid. p. 53). Again, M. d’ Apchier de Pruns (‘ Revue Horticole,’ 
1883, p. 316) has recorded that “‘at Brasse les Mines, in Central France, 
white Oxen become of lighter hue, and Pheasants, Pigeons, Ducks, &c., have 
more or less white feathers; plants with variegated leaves soon become 
uniformly green” (cf. Varigny, ibid. p. 54). 
+ ‘The Great Sahara,’ p. 214. 
{ ‘Cruise of the Marchesa,’ 2nd edit., p. 84, 
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