Animal Coloration: an Account of the Principal Facts and Theories relating to the Colours and Markings of Animals

Abstract

THE theory of natural selection has been pre-eminent for over thirty years as the most generally accepted explanation of organic evolution. It has, and has had throughout, many critics; but its position is strengthened by the fact that these critics invariably accept the principle as accounting for something, while most of them make it clear that they reject all other proposed substitutes, except those for which they are individually responsible. Sometimes the attempt to formulate an alternative hypothesis, or to apply it to the facts of nature, breaks down as soon as it is undertaken. A curious instance of this is to be found in Semper's “Animal Life,” which begins with very large anticipations:—all the “popular cant” of the Darwinian is to be “put out of court as useless”; a selective explanation can never be a real one, but for the latter we are to consult the subsequent pages. But as case after case is examined, the author is constrained to admit that his real explanation is not forthcoming, and that, although he never will think much of selection, it is the only cause he has to offer. Semper would appear to have written his preface before he considered the materials from which he proposed to write his book.

Animal Coloration: an Account of the Principal Facts and Theories relating to the Colours and Markings of Animals.

By F. E. Beddard (Swan Sonnenschein & Co.)