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Show 336 DARWINISM ('HAP. are more gorgeous than some of the tiger-beetles and the carabi, yet these are all carnivorous; while many of the most brilliant metallic buprestidre and longicorns arc always found on the bark of fallen trees. So with the humming-birds ; their brilliant metallic tints can only be compared with mct:th; or gems, and are totally unlike the delicate pinks and purples, yellows and reds of the majority of flowers. Again, the Australian honey-suckers (Meliphttgidre) are genuine flowerhaunters, and the Australian flora is more brilliant in colour display than that of most tropical regions, yet these birds arc, as a rule, of dull colours, not superior on the average to our grain-eating finches. Then, again, we have the grand pheasant family, including the gold and the silver pheasants, the gorgeous fire-backed and ocellated pheasants, and the resplendent peacock, all feeding on the ground on grain or seeds or insects, yet adorned with the most gorgeous colours. There is, therefore, no adequate basis of facts for this theory to rest upon, even if there were tho slightest rca on to believe that not only birds, but butterflies and beetles, take any delight in colour for its own sake, apart from the food-supply of which it indicates the presence. All that has been proved or that appears to be probable is, that they arc able to perceive differences of colour, and to associate each colour with thl' particular flowers or fruits which best sati fy their wants. Colour being in its nature diverse, it has been benefi cial for them to be able to distinguish all its chief varietie. , as manifested more particularly in the vegetable kingdom, <tncl among the different species of their own group ; and the fact that certain specie. of insects show some preference for a par ticular colour may be explained by their having found flowers of that colour to yield them a more abundant supply of nectar or of pollen. In those cases in which butterflies frequent flowers of their own colour, the habit may well have been acquired from the protection it affords them. It appears to me that, in imputing to insects and birds the same love of colour for its own sake and the same ::esthetic tastes as we ourselves possess, we may be as far from the truth as were those writers who held that the bee W<1S a good mat hcmatician, and that the honeycomb was constructed throughout to satisfy its refined mathematical instincts; whereas it is now XI THE SPECIAL COLOUR OF PLANTS 33i generally admitted to be tho result f . . . economy of material apiJl. d t ? . t?o Simple prtnCiple of 10 0 a pnmitlve cylindrical cclJ.l In studying the phenomena f I . we have been led to reali th o co ~ur m the organic world adaptations which brin(J' c·1:h e \~on .erful complexity of the with all those which su~To~nd specws mt? harmoniou relation the whole of nature I·n ... t It, land whlCh thus link together m. tnc. acy. y ct all th' .... , nbo wor <: .o f rei a t' f IS IS wns o marvellous U t as It W . th and garment of nature beh· l' h' h ~re, c outward show 1 ' ' me w Ic hes th · - t lC framework, the vessels th II c. mncr. structure and the di(J'ostivc and .. 'd c. ce s, the circulatmg fluids h o lepro UCtive p ' t esc u.gain those m stcrious . . rocosses,:-and behind forces which consti.ttlyte 1 t chemlCal, electrlCal, and vital ~ppear "" 1a we term L'f Th to be fundamentall th 1 0 · cs? forces Is the material of which Jl c same for all orgamsms, as find behind the outer d' .. ~rc co~structed; and we thus binds to (Tether the nly ... Ilvcfi J tics an. mncr relationship which o . 1 I<tc orms of hfc. Each species of animal or 1 h harmonious whole, carr in in pant t us f~rms part of one structure the record of tyh gl all the detmls of its complex d . o on (J' story of or()' · d 1 an It was with a truly · . 0d . . oamc eve opment , h . mspirc 111SJ O'ht th t . . ' sop Ical poet apostrOJ)hisccl tho h uml)o l e weae do-m gr•e at philo. Flowet· in the cranuied wnll, ~ pluck you out of the cmnnie. L !tltolldfiyou here, root atHl all, i~ my hand \VI I et ower- but ~i f I con ld understand ' I la you are, root and all, aud all iu all should know what God an cl man IS. ' l See Origin of Species, sixth edition, p. 220. z |
