Page:Darwinism by Alfred Wallace 1889.djvu/193

VII to insects, for it is found that silkworms which produce white cocoons resist the fungus disease much better than do those which produce yellow cocoons. Among plants, we have in North America green and yellow-fruited plums not affected by a disease that attacked the purple-fruited varieties. Yellow-fleshed peaches suffer more from disease than white-fleshed kinds. In Mauritius, white sugar-canes were attacked by a disease from which the red canes were free. White onions and verbenas are most liable to mildew; and red-flowered hyacinths were more injured by the cold during a severe winter in Holland than any other kinds.

These curious and inexplicable correlations of colour with constitutional peculiarities, both in animals and plants, render it probable that the correlation of colour with infertility, which has been detected in several cases in plants, may also extend to animals in a state of nature; and if so, the fact is of the highest importance as throwing light on the origin of the infertility of many allied species. This will be better understood after considering the facts which will be now described.

In the last chapter I have shown that the importance of geographical isolation for the formation of new species by natural selection has been greatly exaggerated, because the