beak towards the female, and chuckles with delight," while he has never seen the more plain coloured thrush demonstrative to the female. The linnet distends his rosy breast, and slightly expands his brown wings and tail; while the various gay coloured Australian finches adopt such attitudes and postures as, in every case, to show off their variously coloured plumage to the best advantage.[1]
A Theory of Animal Coloration.
Having rejected Mr. Darwin's theory of female choice as incompetent to account for the brilliant colours and markings of the higher animals, the preponderance of these colours and markings in the male sex, and their display during periods of activity or excitement, I may be asked what explanation I have to offer as a preferable substitute. In my Tropical Nature I have already indicated such a theory, which I will now briefly explain, supporting it by some additional facts and arguments, which appear to me to have great weight, and for which I am mainly indebted to a most interesting and suggestive posthumous work by Mr. Alfred Tylor.[2]
The fundamental or ground colours of animals are, as has been shown in preceding chapters, very largely protective, and it is not improbable that the primitive colours of all animals were so. During the long course of animal development other modes of protection than concealment by harmony of colour arose, and thenceforth the normal development of colour due to the complex chemical and structural changes ever going on in the organism, had full play; and the colours thus produced were again and again modified by natural selection for purposes of warning, recognition, mimicry, or special protection, as has been already fully explained in the preceding chapters.
Mr. Taylor has, however, called attention to an important principle which underlies the various patterns or ornamental markings of animals—namely, that diversified coloration follows the chief lines of structure, and changes at points, such as the joints, where function changes. He says, "If we take highly decorated species—that is, animals marked by
