Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 10.djvu/22

12 connected with a change of food. First, he established the fact that insects accustomed to one kind of plant could acquire a taste for another kind, and he has shown that in thus changing the food of the insect a change took place in the appearance of either the larva, pupa, or imago, and sometimes all three stages were affected. Dr. Fitch had observed that changing an insect's larva from the leaf to the fruit affected the appearance of the larva. It would be impossible to give even an abstract of Dr. Walsh's remarkable essay. It may be said, however, that his investigations led him irresistibly to the conclusion that the present species have been derived from preëxisting ones, and in numberless cases he is capable of showing the successive stages from the dawn of a plant-eating variety, where the changes are slightly seen in the larva only, to the plant-eating species in which profound changes are seen in the larva, pupa, and imago.

The minor factors of natural selection, such as protective coloring and mimicry, have been variously illustrated by Mr. R. E. C. Stearns, Dr. Kneeland, Prof. Cope, Dr. Charles C. Abbott, and others. In a special paper on "The Adaptive Coloration of Mollusca," I have endeavored to show not only a wide-spread application of this feature to mollusks, and especially those exposed by the tide, but in some cases a mimicry of inanimate objects, as the accumulation of clay or grains of sand upon the shell.

Wallace's theory of birds'-nests finds interesting confirmations in the observations of Dr. Abbott, who made a special study of a large number of robins'-nests, and found the widest variation among them. He studied also the nests of the Baltimore oriole, where, according to the theory of Wallace, a concealing nest should be made, the bird being exceedingly bright-colored. He found that, away from the habitations of man, the orioles built concealing nests; but in villages and cities, on the other hand, where they were in no special danger from predatory hawks, the nests were built comparatively open, so that the bird within was not concealed.

The differences in the habits of animals of the same species are noticed in different parts of the country, and such facts militate against the idea that certain unerring ways were implanted in them at the outset. Indeed, such facts go to show that these various creatures not only become adapted to their surroundings, but that individual peculiarities manifest themselves. The observations of Dr. Cones, Mr. Allen, and Mr. Martin Trippe, go to prove that certain birds change their habits in a marked degree. In their behavior, too, certain birds, which are wild and suspicious in New England, are comparatively tame in the West. In their resting-places they show wide individual variation.