Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 4 (1900).djvu/575

Rh presumptive evidence that, at least, the great majority of cases of general resemblance are due to the same factor. For it is evident that all cases of special resemblance must, at some time or other, have passed through a general phase, and therefore we must necessarily apply the same explanation in both categories.

Nevertheless, while the orthodox Darwinist may maintain that protective colouration, together with the appropriate instincts which are necessary to render it of any use, have been ultimately developed through natural selection (save, perhaps, in a very few exceptional cases),(n7) yet it is competent for him, without any contradiction, to admit that probably some few of the most intelligent animals may, in the course of their mental evolution, have arrived at such a standard as to be able to appreciate the value of their own protective actions, which were originally merely instinctive—a very different position, however, from that suggested by Mr. Distant.

But even for such an admission some definite proof is required. On looking through the large number of instances quoted by Mr. Distant in support of his suggestions, there appears to be only one case which affords anything like real proof, as opposed to mere suggestion. I refer to Mr. E.S. Thompson's account of the actions of a fox: "A fire had swept the middle of the pasture, leaving a broad belt of black; over this he skurried until he came to the unburnt yellow grass again, when he squatted down and was lost to view. He had been watching us all the time, and would not have moved had we kept to the road. The wonderful part of this is, not that he resembled the round stones and dry grass, but that he knew he did, and was ready to profit by it" ('Wild Animals I have known,' p. 193).(n8) This is a good example from Mr. Distant's point of view, but the fox is notoriously one of the most sagacious and cunning of animals, and, even if we believe that many of its actions are due to conscious intelligence, this does not in any way prove the occurrence of such intelligence in insects, fishes, or even other mammals, each of which cases would require independent proof. Further, it may be as well to point out that probably the process of reasoning in the fox would be quite different from that which would prompt a man to put on a khaki-coloured shirt when going out to shoot buck. It is improbable that any of the lower animals have any real conception of their own appearance, and it is likely that any consciousness they may exhibit in their protective actions consists rather in the general recognition that they are freer from attack in certain particular spots or types of country, than from any true appreciation of the optical phenomena to which they really owe their safety.

But it must be noted that a mere desire to hide, apart from any