ASSIMILATIVE COLOURATION. 469 
colouration. According to the Biblical narrative, the astute 
Jacob in his negotiations with Laban increased the number of 
“ringstraked, speckled, and spotted” cattle by the following 
ingenious method. He ‘“‘took him rods of green poplar, and of 
the hazel and chestnut tree; and pitted white strakes in them, | 
and made the white appear which was in the rods. And he set 
the rods which he had pitted before the flocks in the gutters in 
the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink, that they 
should conceive when they came to drink. And the flocks con- 
ceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ringstraked, 
speckled, and spotted.”* This narrative might be used as a 
theological argument for the theory that wild animals may have 
acquired their spots and stripes in a similar manner, as the Tiger 
in his bamboo jungle, &c., and it seems strange in these plentiful 
days of theory that no clerical evolutionist has advanced such a 
view. Canon Tristram, however, by his observations in the 
Sahara, does not advocate this suggestion, for in these desert plains 
he described sheep in which ‘‘Jacob’s ringstraked and speckled, 
dappled with white, and especially light brown predominated.” t+ 
Another suggestion, to which allusion has already been made, 
is that of the late Alfred Tylor, who starts with the premiss that 
it “‘seems most probable that the fundamental or primitive 
colouration is arranged in spots,’ { and that these are capable 
of being coalesced into bands, stripes, and blotches, and are 
structural in affinity. ‘‘If we take highly decorated species, that 
is, animals marked by alternate light and dark bands, or spots, 
such as the Zebra, some Deer, or the carnivora, we find first that 
the region of the spinal column is marked by a dark stripe; 
secondly, that the regions of the appendages, or limbs, are 
differently marked; thirdly, that the flanks are striped or spotted 
along or between the regions of the lines of the ribs; fourthly, 
that the shoulder and hip regions are marked by curved lines; 
fifthly, that the pattern changes, and the direction of the lines, 
or spots, at the head, neck, and every joint of the limbs; and 
lastly, that the tips of the ears, nose, tail, and feet, and the eye 
* Genesis, chap. xxx. verses 37-9. In the following chapter—xxxi. verses 
10-138—this is altogether attributed to the favour of the God of Bethel. 
+ ‘The Great Sahara,’ p. 61. 
t *Colouration in Animals and Plants,’ p. 23. 
Zool. 4th ser. vol. II., November, 1898. 2K 
