i879-] 
Colour and its Recognition. 
397 
originally to natural oxidation aided by the seledtive action 
of insedts.” To the second question, whether insedts had 
any tendency to discriminate colours apart from the readtion 
of entomophilous flowers, he replies that colours differ not 
merely qualitatively, but quantitatively, according as they 
absorb a greater or less proportion of the luminous rays. 
Thus “ white might be distinguished by the primitive eye 
from green, brown, or black.” If a beginning is thus given 
the rest will easily follow. 
In a chapter devoted to the colour-sense of insedts, the 
reality of which he proves by an appeal to numerous and 
fully-established fadts, the author reverts to the views of 
Mr. Gladstone, Dr. Geiger, and Dr. Magnus, and declares 
that they have been “ partially adopted ” even by Mr. Wal- 
lace in his “ Tropical Nature.” This we can scarcely 
admit, since in that very work he points out the cardinal 
error in Mr. Gladstone’s reasoning, viz., that the absence of 
a precise nomenclature for colours is no proof of the lack 
of colour-perception. In disposing of the old theory of the 
colouration of flowers, our author happily remarks ; — “ Not 
even the watch-maker deity of Paley himself, one may 
suppose, would have invented flowers in the Secondary Age 
for the sole gratification of man in the Post-tertiary. To 
put it briefly, if insedts have not a colour-sense, then the 
whole universe must be nothing more than a singularly 
happy concourse of fortuitous atoms.” 
Just as the varied hues of flowers are due to the seledtive 
adtion of insedts, so the colouration of fruits must be sought 
in the readtion of birds and mammals. These, attradted by 
the colour no less than the odour of fruits, swallow the 
pulp, and void the hard, smooth, indigestible seeds with 
their excreta, placing them thus under highly favourable 
circumstances for germination. Hence the plant whose 
fruits assumed the most brilliant and striking colouration 
would gain a decided advantage in the struggle for existence. 
On the fadt that some poisonous, indigestible, or other- 
wise non-eatable fruits display a brilliant colouring much 
might be said did space permit. The author hazards the 
suggestion that some plants, such as the common arum and 
the manchineel, may derive a benefit from the poisonous 
property of their seeds, which if eaten by birds or small 
mammals might prove fatal, and “ would thus have an op- 
portunity of germinating in the midst of a rich manure 
heap formed of its decomposing body.” We must remem- 
ber, however, that poisonous seeds are avoided by most 
species and prove harmless to others. 
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