496 Correspondence . [July* 
speak the language of its parents. Now if a bird is a continua- 
tion of the personality of its ancestors, why should it not adopt 
their song as instinctively as their style of nest-building. — 
I am, &c., 
An Old Naturalist. 
THE BAND PATTERN IN ANIMALS. 
To the Editor of the Monthly Journal of Science. 
Sir, — In reply to J. W. S. permit me to say that the faCts he 
mentions respecting the band pattern in animals have often been 
observed. In a recent number of “ Science for All ” (vol. i., 
p. 252), Mr. W. Ackroyd remarks that a bilateral symmetry of 
marking exists in the head of the Bengal tiger and bodies of 
zebra, the Indian tapir, the Aard wolf, and some of our domestic 
cats. He then proceeds to adduce many faCts which seem to 
point out that colour uniformities — i.e., sexual differences, bi- 
lateral symmetry, and colour distribution generally — are “ regu- 
lated by some deeply-seated and symmetrically distributed portion 
of the organism, such as the nervous system. 
I may observe that the bands are often parallel to the axial 
line, there being many examples of this in the British Museum. 
May we not, therefore, look upon the band pattern as of three 
kinds with respeCt to the axial line : — 1st, the right-angle pat- 
tern ; 2nd, the parallel pattern ; and 3rd, what may be taken as 
a mixture of the two — the spotted pattern ? — I am, &c., 
L. J. de Whalley. 
June 23, 1S79. 
