V 
COLOURS OF ANIMALS 
339 
a inarvellous and ever -changing picture. In contrast with 
these broad and soothing tints, we have presented to us in 
the vegetable and animal worlds an infinite variety of objects 
adorned with the most beautiful and most varied hues. 
Flowers, insects, and birds are the organisms most generally 
ornamented in this way ; and their symmetry of form, their 
variety of structure, and the lavish abundance with which 
they clothe and enliven the earth, cause them to be objects 
of universal admiration. The relation of this wealth of colour 
to our mental and moral nature is indisputable. The child 
and the savage alike admire the gay tints of flower, bird, 
and insect ; while to many of us their contemplation brings a 
solace and enjoyment which is both intellectually and morally 
beneficial. It can then hardly excite surprise that this rela- 
tion was long thought to afford a sufficient explanation of the 
phenomena of colour in nature ; and although the fact that 
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 
And waste its sweetness on the desert air, 
might seem to throw some doubt on the sufficiency of the 
explanation, the answer was easy, — that in the progress of 
discovery man would, sooner or later, find out and enjoy 
every beauty that the hidden recesses of the earth have in 
store for him. This theory received great support from the 
difficulty of conceiving any other use or meaning in the 
colours with which so many natural objects are adorned. 
Why should the homely gorse be clothed in golden raiment, 
and the prickly cactus be adorned with crimson bells ? Why 
should our fields be gay with buttercups, and the heather-clad 
mountains be clad in purple robes ? Why should every land 
produce its own peculiar floral gems, and the alpine rocks 
glow with beauty, if not for the contemplation and enjoyment 
of man ? What could be the use to the butterfly of its gaily- 
painted wings, or to the humming-bird of its jewelled breast, 
except to add the final touches to a world-picture, calculated at 
once to please and to refine mankind 1 And even now, with all our 
recently acquired knowledge of this subject, who shall say that 
these old-world views were not intrinsically and fundamentally 
sound; and that, although we now know that colour has “uses” 
in nature that we little dreamt of, yet the relation of those 
colours — or rather of the various rays of light — to our senses 
