Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 5 (1901).djvu/362

334 we not assume a similar process to have occurred with the eyes of insectivorous birds to whom a microscopic search for insects becomes a necessity of life; whilst the soaring Vulture has developed a long-sightedness which enables it, if not to see the quarry, at all events to discern its distant companion descending to the same. We have said we may be accused of Lamarckism, because it does not seem to be allowed by many of the followers of Weismann that an acquired character may be capable of being perpetuated and accentuated by the action of "Natural Selection."

As with insects, we know little of the sight perceptions of other and much more highly developed animals. When in South Africa, I kept a young Baboon, who seemed pleased, at the decline of day, to mount a low roof, and watch the setting sun. I gazed at the same, but did we both see a similar appearance? Turner could see and paint a sunset unappreciable by the senses of ordinary men who possess similar organs of sense. What did my Baboon see as he gazed in the same direction as myself? The question seems unanswerable. Could it have faithfully drawn and painted what it saw, such a picture could only appear to my senses as an exact representation of what I now see, and