Colouration in Animals and Plants

Bearing in mind the great tendency to repetition and symmetry of marking we have shown to exist, it becomes an interesting question to work out the origin of the peculiar spots,...

Natural science has shown us how the existing colouration of an animal or plant can be laid hold of and modified in almost infinite ways under the influence of natural or artifi...

Many of our observations seemed to suggest a quasi-intelligent action on the part of the beings under examination; and we were led, early in the course of our studies, to adopt...

First, as to the nature of light and colour. Colour is essentially the effect of different kinds of vibrations upon certain nerves. Without such nerves, light can produce no lum...

The Hydras, as a rule, are not coloured in our sense of the term; that is to say, they are of a general uniform brown colour. But in one species, _H. viridis_, the endoderm cont...

In thinking over this obscure subject, the opinion has steadily gathered strength that form and colour are closely allied; for form is essential to pattern; and colour without p...

Before Darwin published his remarkable and memorable work on the Origin of Species, the decoration of animals and plants was a mystery as much hidden to the majority as the beau...

In the decoration of insects and birds, nature has exerted all her power; and amongst the wealth of beauty here displayed we ought to find crucial tests of the views herein advo...

If the principle of the dependence of colour-pattern upon structure, enunciated in the preceding pages be sound, we ought to find certain great schemes of colouration correspond...

The border pattern may consist of one or more rows of spots, lines, bands, or scallops;[31] and there is frequently a fine fringe, which in many cases is white, with black marks...

It appears that colouration began--perhaps as a product of digestion--by the application of pigment to the organs of transparent creatures. Supposing that evolution be true--and...

The vertebrata, as their name implies, are distinguished by the possession of an internal skeleton, of which the backbone is the most essential part, and the general, but not un...

The thorax is covered with a horny plate, while the abdomen only possesses a soft skin, and neither show any traces of segmentation. From the thorax spring four pairs of legs, a...

Of the Arthropoda, including the lobsters, crabs, shrimps, etc., little can be said here, as we have not yet been able to study them with anything like completeness. Still, we f...

The _Foraminifera_ are the earliest animals that possess a skeleton or shell, and though generally very small, this shell is often complex, and of extreme beauty, though their b...

With regard to leaves, especially such as are brightly coloured, like the Begonias, Caladiums, Coleus, and Anoechtochilus, Plate XI., the colour follows pretty closely the lines...

So marked, indeed, is this emphasis of sensitive parts that every hair of the movable feelers of a cat is shown by colour to be different in function from the hairs of the neck,...

_General Scheme of Colouring._ So various are the patterns displayed upon the wings of butterflies, that amidst the lines, stripes, bars, dots, spots, ocelli, scalloppings, etc....