ess forest-depths of the
Amazon or of New Guinea. Neither is there any relation between the
colours of other insects and their haunts. Few are more gorgeous than
some of the tiger-beetles and the carabi, yet these are all carnivorous;
while many of the most brilliant metallic buprestidae and longicorns are
always found on the bark of fallen trees. So with the humming-birds;
their brilliant metallic tints can only be compared with metals or gems,
and are totally unlike the delicate pinks and purples, yellows and reds
of the majority of flowers. Again, the Australian honey-suckers
(Meliphagidae) are genuine flower-haunters, and the Australian flora is
more brilliant in colour display than that of most tropical regions, yet
these birds are, as a rule, of dull colours, not superior on the average
to our grain-eating finches. Then, again, we have the grand pheasant
family, including the gold and the silver pheasants, the gorgeous
fire-backed and ocellated pheasants, and the resplendent peacock, all
feeding on the ground on grain or seeds or insects, yet adorned with the
most gorgeous colours.

There is, therefore, no adequate basis of facts for this theory to rest
upon, even if there were the slightest reason to believe that not only
birds, but butterflies and beetles, take any delight in colour for its
own sake, apart from the food-supply of which it indicates the presence.
All that has been proved or that appears to be probable is, that they
are able to perceive differences of colour, and to associate each colour
with the particular flowers or fruits which best satisfy their wants.
Colour being in its nature diverse, it has been beneficial for them to
be able to distinguish all its chief varieties, as manifested more
particularly in the vegetable kingdom, and among the different species
of their own group; and the fact that certain species of insects show
some preference for a particular colour may be explained by their having
found flowers of that colour to yield them a more abundant supply of
nectar or of pollen. In those cases in which butterflies frequent
flowers of their own colour, the habit may well have been acquired from
the protection it affords them.

It appears to me that, in imputing to insects and birds the same love of
colour for its own sake and the same aesthetic tastes as we ourselves
possess, we may be as far from the truth as were those writers who held
that the bee was a good mathematician, and that t