ASSIMILATIVE COLOURATION. 465 
assimilative colouration, it seems even more opposed to evolu- 
tionary ideas to predicate that because a mammal, as we know it 
at the present time, has a striped coat, it had also the same 
appearance in past geological epochs. Yet this seems to have 
been the method of Prof. Heilprin, who has written so excellently 
on the distribution of animals, considered geologically as well as 
geographically. Thus we read:—‘ The striped Hyena may be 
traced back to the older (Pliocene) H. arvennensis of Central 
France, and the brown form not improbably to the Miocene (or 
Pliocene) H. exima of Pikermi, Greece.”’* At the present day 
we have brown, spotted, and striped Hyenas (H. brunnea, H. 
crocuta, and H. striata) all found in, though not confined to, the 
continent of Africa, and however they may differ osteologically, 
and however distinctly these differences may be detected in fossil 
forms, yet surely we are not warranted in concluding that identity 
of colouration has survived from the geological past. But 
speculating on the generally accepted conclusion that spots and 
stripes succeeded a uniform or concolorous decoration, and re- 
membering that the three forms of markings referred to can 
almost be found at the present time, it seems we ought to be 
very cautious, as evolutionists, in concluding that the Hyena had 
developed either spots, or stripes, in Miocene or Pliocene times. 
Remembering the numerous remains of the genus found in the 
Pleistocene deposits of Europe, and that, as Prof. Heilprin 
remarks, it was from these north temperate regions ‘‘ the Ethio- 
pian realm has drawn much of its existing distinctive fauna,” 
and that the widely distributed Cave Hyena (H. spelea), if not 
identical with the present spotted form (H. crocuta), was ‘“‘ without 
doubt its direct ancestor,” it remains a suggestion as to what the 
original colouration was, altogether apart from structural specific 
distinction. Among the fossils of Pikermi, Gaudry found the 
successive stages by which the ancient Civets passed into the 
more modern Hyenas. t 
* ‘Geograph. and Geolog. Distrib. Animals,’ p.386. Prof. Boyd Dawkins 
likewise includes the ‘‘ Spotted Hyena” (H. spel@a) in his list of mammalia 
occurring in Great Britain in association with Paleolithic implements in 
the Pleistocene river deposits and the caves” (‘Journ. Anthrop. Instit.,’ 
vol. xvili. p. 243). 
+ Huxley, ‘Collected Essays,’ vol. ii. p. 241. 
