39S Colour and its Recognition, [June, 
Among the Mammalia, the author declares that the evi- 
dences of a colour-sense are mainly wanting. “ The anti- 
pathy of male ruminants for scarlet,” which he mentions,* 
seems to us to point to a tolerably well-developed recognition 
of colour. The bull, e.g., must be able to discriminate 
between scarlet or blood-red and that reddish brown so 
common in his own species. If, however, the author’s 
theory be corre< 5 t, an absence of the colour-sense, save in 
monkeys, and perhaps squirrels, need not surprise us. No 
other mammals feed upon fruits or are very specially con- 
nected with flowers. This same deficiency, Mr. Allen 
considers, is the cause why mammals display none of the 
brilliant colouration so common in other departments of 
the animal kingdom. We cannot, however, refrain from 
pointing out that the golden mole, the only mammal en- 
dowed with fur of a metallic lustre, is certainly no fruit- 
eater. 
Among flower- and fruit-feeding species in the most dif- 
ferent groups of the animal kingdom the author considers 
that there prevails a community of tastes, in strongly- 
marked contrast to those of the Carnivora and the carrion- 
feeders. With this view, however, we cannot entirely agree. 
Many of the perfumes which are most agreeable to us are 
equally attractive to cats. Nothing seems to delight a 
leopard more than a saucer of lavender-water, and the 
common cat rolls in delight upon a number of plants which 
secrete essential oils, and which certainly have no connec- 
tion with her ordinary diet.! On the other hand, many 
butterflies, though feeding ordinarily upon the neCtar of 
flowers, may be attracted by odours of a most antagonistic 
character. Perhaps the easiest way to capture high-flying 
species, such as Apatura Iris , and the splended Papilios and 
Ornithopteras of sunnier climates, is to bait for them with 
excrement or carrion, such as a dead rat or a weasel. 
Many of our common native butterflies may be seen haunting 
manure-heaps and sipping the foetid moisture. 
To a certain passage in Mr. Wallace’s “ Tropical 
Nature, in which this illustrious biologist considers that 
an insect’s capacity to distinguish colours may probably be 
quite unaccompanied by a sense of radical distinctness, 
* Is this antipathy confined to males ? Mr. Allen elsewhere remarks that 
dogs are attracted by bright colours. 
t “ Senses of the Lower Animals.” (Quarterly Journal of Science, vob 
viii., p. 297.) 
+ Page 238. 
