A first book in organic evolution

by D. Kerfoot Shute

As a correct idea of the mode of operation of Natural Selection, and the pronounced results attained thereby, is very desirable, it will well repay the reader to study in extenso the relations of color-patterns to environment. The whole subject is nothing but repeated illustrations of one principle, viz.: Natural Selection. This fact and the interest of the subject will justify the numerous details.

The Coloration of Animals and Environment. The colors of animals often harmonize most wonderfully with their surroundings. Thus green is a common color of animals in the evergreen forests of the tropics; white is the prevailing color in the arctic regions; and a yellowish hue in desert places. In the evergreen forests of tropical America, whole groups of birds are found whose fundamental color is green; there the parrots and fruit-eating pigeons are commonly green; the bee-eaters, leaf-thrushes, and many other birds, have so much green in their color as to add greatly to their concealment in the dense green foliage. In the desert places, the lion, the desert antelope and the camel harmonize with the color of the rocks and sand among which they live. In the Arctic regions the polar bear, the Greenland falcon, and the American polar hare are white. We have further the dusky hue of creatures that haunt the night, such as mice, moles, and bats; and the gorgeous tints of fishes that swim among the coral reefs. These local color adaptations of animals are of great use to them, either enabling them to escape the notice of their enemies or to come upon their prey with the least risk of being detected. Certain groups of animals have a local color-adaptation, and may be noticed under the heading of Protective Coloration; others have acquired a wonderful resemblance to surrounding inanimate objects, such as leaves, twigs, bird-droppings, flowers, etc., and may be described under the heading of Protective Imitation of particular objects, or Protective Resemblance; closely allied to the latter are those resemblances to surrounding objects which are not so much for the purpose of protecting the animals from enemies as for attracting their prey, and these resemblances, therefore, will be described under the title of Alluring Coloration. Other animals have such color patterns as to be very conspicuous in their surroundings; these animals are usually very poisonous or possess other deleterious qualities that cause beasts of prey to avoid them; hence these animals may be said to possess Warning Coloration. Many animals that are very desirable food for carnivorous creatures have acquired, in past ages, a remarkable resemblance to these dangerous animals with warning coloration, and are treated of under the title of Mimicry. There are still other groups of animals whose peculiar coloration enables the member of a herd or flock which may have become separated from the herd to readily recognize its companions at a distance as friends, and thus distinguish them from enemies. The color patterns of these animals may be classed under the heading of Recognition Marks.

Protective Coloration, or Local Color Adaptation. In forest-haunting animals of large size, such as forest-cats, and forest-deer, rounded spots are frequently noticed. Animals like the tiger, that spend a great deal of their time among high grasses and reeds, are striped vertically. The combined artistic effects of these spots and stripes, in connection with the lights and shades of the forest and the reeds, are such as quite effectually to conceal the animals from view: for the black stripes of the tiger, for instance, correspond with the black shadows of the reeds or grasses; and his yellow stripes with the yellow of the reeds. In like manner the rounded spots of the forest-deer harmonize with the spotty shadows of the leaves in the forest. An experienced tiger hunter has stated that in following up a wounded tiger the natives saw the animal at a distance of about twenty meters, under a tree among the reeds, and pointed out the animal to him; but the color effects of the stripes of the tiger so harmonized with the artistic effect of the light and shade of the reeds as to effectually prevent his seeing the animal for a minute or so. The zebra, which is such a conspicuous animal in our zoölogical gardens, on its native soil and in a bright star-light night, may be so close to one as to be heard breathing, and yet cannot be seen, so completely are its color patterns in harmony with its native habitat. Marine organisms that float on the surface of the water are beautifully tinged with blue in harmony with the color of the ocean as it appears to their enemies above, the birds; while, looked at from below, they are white, thus harmonizing with the white clouds and the foam as seen by enemies from below.

There are many animals that are very conspicuous when removed from their native haunts, yet when in their proper environment are invisible or detected with the greatest difficulty. Such a large animal as the giraffe is effectually concealed by its form and color when standing among the broken and dead trees that exist on the edges of the thickets where it may be seeking its food. The odd shape of the head, with its horns that resemble broken branches, and the blotchy spots on the skin, so harmonize with its surroundings that even the keen eyes of the natives sometimes mistake giraffes for trees and trees for giraffes.

There is a bat (Kerivoula picta) found in the island of Formosa that has a very conspicuous black and orange color. The body of this bat is of an orange color, and its wings are black and orange-yellow. When resting it suspends itself, head downwards, from the branches of an evergreen tree. During all the year some part of the foliage of this tree is undergoing decay, so that many of the leaves assume tints of orange and black. When the bat is suspended among such decaying leaves its colors and those of the leaves so harmonize that the animal is perfectly concealed, and thus eludes its enemies.

The sunbirds of Africa are very conspicuous when out of their natural environment, being brilliant and gorgeously colored. These birds find their main food supply among plants that have very conspicuous flowers; the aloe-blossoms, especially, which they frequent, are brilliantly colored. The colors of these birds so completely harmonize with the gay colors of the blossoms that even the keen eye of the hawk is unable to detect them. One species of these birds, the black sunbird, is never absent from a forest tree known as the Kaffir boom. This tree has not a single green leaf on it, but consists of a great mass of purplish-black and scarlet blossoms. A dozen of the black sunbirds may be feeding in this tree, and their notes may be heard among its branches all the day, yet their color adaptation to their environment is so complete that they are seen with the greatest difficulty or are entirely invisible.

Those birds whose colors have varied in such a way that they have not harmonized with their surroundings,—that have not become adapted to their environment,—are seen by the hawks and are exterminated; but those whose colors were more favorably arranged and more in harmony with their surroundings have been most often undetected by their enemies, the hawks, and have lived and transmitted their useful color patterns by heredity to their offspring. This process going on, age after age, has developed such perfect adaptations of the sunbirds to their environment as the naturalist observes at present.

These examples are illustrations of the fact that those creatures that are most in harmony with their surroundings are the ones that live and procreate their kind. They are cases of the survival of those animals that are best adapted to their environment,—the survival of the fittest; the selection by nature of favored creatures; in short, Natural Selection.

Among our native birds, the woodcock and snipe have such tints and markings as strikingly to harmonize them with the dead marshy vegetation which constitutes their native haunts. The ptarmigan in winter has a light coloration in harmony with the environment of snow, while in its summer plumage it is tinted and mottled in harmony with the color effects of the lichen-covered stones among which it spends a great deal of its time. Young unfledged plovers are spotted in such a way as very accurately to resemble the beach pebbles among which they remain for protection.