The Descent of Man by Charles Darwin (children's ebooks online TXT) 📖

is more brightly spotted with white than the common hog-deer, at the season when it renews its horns.) In both these species the young are spotted. In the Virginian deer the young are likewise spotted, and about five per cent. of the adult animals living in Judge Caton’s park, as I am informed by him, temporarily exhibit at the period when the red summer coat is being replaced by the bluish winter coat, a row of spots on each flank, which are always the same in number, though very variable in distinctness. From this condition there is but a very small step to the complete absence of spots in the adults at all seasons; and, lastly, to their absence at all ages and seasons, as occurs with certain species. From the existence of this perfect series, and more especially from the fawns of so many species being spotted, we may conclude that the now living members of the deer family are the descendants of some ancient species which, like the axis deer, was spotted at all ages and seasons. A still more ancient progenitor probably somewhat resembled the Hyomoschus aquaticus—for this animal is spotted, and the hornless males have large exserted canine teeth, of which some few true deer still retain rudiments. Hyomoschus, also, offers one of those interesting cases of a form linking together two groups, for it is intermediate in certain osteological characters between the pachyderms and ruminants, which were formerly thought to be quite distinct. (42. Falconer and Cautley, ‘Proc. Geolog. Soc.’ 1843; and Falconer’s ‘Pal. Memoirs,’ vol. i. p. 196.)

A curious difficulty here arises. If we admit that coloured spots and stripes were first acquired as ornaments, how comes it that so many existing deer, the descendants of an aboriginally spotted animal, and all the species of pigs and tapirs, the descendants of an aboriginally striped animal, have lost in their adult state their former ornaments? I cannot satisfactorily answer this question. We may feel almost sure that the spots and stripes disappeared at or near maturity in the progenitors of our existing species, so that they were still retained by the young; and, owing to the law of inheritance at corresponding ages, were transmitted to the young of all succeeding generations. It may have been a great advantage to the lion and puma, from the open nature of their usual haunts, to have lost their stripes, and to have been thus rendered less conspicuous to their prey; and if the successive variations, by which this end was gained, occurred rather late in life, the young would have retained their stripes, as is now the case. As to deer, pigs, and tapirs, Fritz Muller has suggested to me that these animals, by the removal of their spots or stripes through natural selection, would have been less easily seen by their enemies; and that they would have especially required this protection, as soon as the carnivora increased in size and number during the tertiary periods. This may be the true explanation, but it is rather strange that the young should not have been thus protected, and still more so that the adults of some species should have retained their spots, either partially or completely, during part of the year. We know that, when the domestic ass varies and becomes reddish-brown, grey, or black, the stripes on the shoulders and even on the spine frequently disappear, though we cannot explain the cause. Very few horses, except dun-coloured kinds, have stripes on any part of their bodies, yet we have good reason to believe that the aboriginal horse was striped on the legs and spine, and probably on the shoulders. (43. The ‘Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication,’ 1868, vol. i. pp. 61-64.) Hence the disappearance of the spots and stripes in our adult existing deer, pigs, and tapirs, may be due to a change in the general colour of their coats; but whether this change was effected through sexual or natural selection, or was due to the direct action of the conditions of life, or to some other unknown cause, it is impossible to decide. An observation made by Mr. Sclater well illustrates our ignorance of the laws which regulate the appearance and disappearance of stripes; the species of Asinus which inhabit the Asiatic continent are destitute of stripes, not having even the cross shoulder-stripe, whilst those which inhabit Africa are conspicuously striped, with the partial exception of A. taeniopus, which has only the cross shoulder-stripe and generally some faint bars on the legs; and this species inhabits the almost intermediate region of Upper Egypt and Abyssinia. (44. ‘Proc. Zool. Soc.’ 1862, p. 164. See, also, Dr. Hartmann, ‘Ann. d. Landw.’ Bd. xliii. s.

222.)

QUADRUMANA.

[Fig. 72. Head of Semnopithecus rubicundus. This and the following figures (from Prof. Gervais) are given to shew the odd arrangement and development of the hair on the head.

Fig. 73. Head of Semnopithecus comatus.

Fig. 74. Head of Cebus capucinus.

Fig. 75. Head of Ateles marginatus.

Fig. 76. Head of Cebus vellerosus.]

Before we conclude, it will be well to add a few remarks on the ornaments of monkeys. In most of the species the sexes resemble each other in colour, but in some, as we have seen, the males differ from the females, especially in the colour of the naked parts of the skin, in the development of the beard, whiskers, and mane. Many species are coloured either in so extraordinary or so beautiful a manner, and are furnished with such curious and elegant crests of hair, that we can hardly avoid looking at these characters as having been gained for the sake of ornament. The accompanying figures (Figs. 72 to 76) serve to shew the arrangement of the hair on the face and head in several species. It is scarcely conceivable that these crests of hair, and the strongly contrasted colours of the fur and skin, can be the result of mere variability without the aid of selection; and it is inconceivable that they can be of use in any ordinary way to these animals. If so, they have probably been gained through sexual selection, though transmitted equally, or almost equally, to both sexes. With many of the Quadrumana, we have additional evidence of the action of sexual selection in the greater size and strength of the males, and in the greater development of their canine teeth, in comparison with the females.

[Fig. 77. Cercopithecus petaurista (from Brehm).]

A few instances will suffice of the strange manner in which both sexes of some species are coloured, and of the beauty of others. The face of the Cercopithecus petaurista (Fig. 77) is black, the whiskers and beard being white, with a defined, round, white spot on the nose, covered with short white hair, which gives to the animal an almost ludicrous aspect. The Semnopithecus frontatus likewise has a blackish face with a long black beard, and a large naked spot on the forehead of a bluish-white colour. The face of Macacus lasiotus is dirty flesh-coloured, with a defined red spot on each cheek. The appearance of Cercocebus aethiops is grotesque, with its black face, white whiskers and collar, chestnut head, and a large naked white spot over each eyelid. In very many species, the beard, whiskers, and crests of hair round the face are of a different colour from the rest of the head, and when different, are always of a lighter tint (45. I observed this fact in the Zoological Gardens; and many cases may be seen in the coloured plates in Geoffroy St.-Hilaire and F. Cuvier, ‘Histoire Nat. des Mammiferes,’ tom. i. 1824.), being often pure white, sometimes bright yellow, or reddish. The whole face of the South American Brachyurus calvus is of a “glowing scarlet hue”; but this colour does not appear until the animal is nearly mature. (46. Bates, ‘The Naturalist on the Amazons,’ 1863, vol. ii. p. 310.) The naked skin of the face differs wonderfully in colour in the various species. It is often brown or flesh-colour, with parts perfectly white, and often as black as that of the most sooty negro. In the Brachyurus the scarlet tint is brighter than that of the most blushing Caucasian damsel. It is sometimes more distinctly orange than in any Mongolian, and in several species it is blue, passing into violet or grey. In all the species known to Mr. Bartlett, in which the adults of both sexes have strongly-coloured faces, the colours are dull or absent during early youth. This likewise holds good with the mandrill and Rhesus, in which the face and the posterior parts of the body are brilliantly coloured in one sex alone. In these latter cases we have reason to believe that the colours were acquired through sexual selection; and we are naturally led to extend the same view to the foregoing species, though both sexes when adult have their faces coloured in the same manner.

[Fig. 78. Cercopithecus diana (from Brehm).]

Although many kinds of monkeys are far from beautiful according to our taste, other species are universally admired for their elegant appearance and bright colours. The Semnopithecus nemaeus, though peculiarly coloured, is described as extremely pretty; the orange-tinted face is surrounded by long whiskers of glossy whiteness, with a line of chestnut-red over the eyebrows; the fur on the back is of a delicate grey, with a square patch on the loins, the tail and the fore-arms being of a pure white; a gorget of chestnut surmounts the chest; the thighs are black, with the legs chestnut- red. I will mention only two other monkeys for their beauty; and I have selected these as presenting slight sexual differences in colour, which renders it in some degree probable that both sexes owe their elegant appearance to sexual selection. In the moustache-monkey (Cercopithecus cephus) the general colour of the fur is mottled-greenish with the throat white; in the male the end of the tail is chestnut, but the face is the most ornamented part, the skin being chiefly bluish-grey, shading into a blackish tint beneath the eyes, with the upper lip of a delicate blue, clothed on the lower edge with a thin black moustache; the whiskers are orange-coloured, with the upper part black, forming a band which extends backwards to the ears, the latter being clothed with whitish hairs. In the Zoological Society’s Gardens I have often overheard visitors admiring the beauty of another monkey, deservedly called Cercopithecus diana (Fig. 78); the general colour of the fur is grey; the chest and inner surface of the forelegs are white; a large triangular defined space on the hinder part of the back is rich chestnut; in the male the inner sides of the thighs and the abdomen are delicate fawn-coloured, and the top of the head is black; the face and ears are intensely black, contrasting finely with a white transverse crest over the eyebrows and a long white peaked beard, of which the basal portion is black. (47. I have seen most of the above monkeys in the Zoological Society’s Gardens. The description of the Semnopithecus nemaeus is taken from Mr. W.C. Martin’s ‘Natural History of Mammalia,’ 1841, p. 460; see also pp. 475, 523.)

In these and many other monkeys, the beauty and singular arrangement of their colours, and still more the diversified and elegant arrangement of the crests and tufts of hair on their heads, force the conviction on my mind that these characters have been acquired through sexual selection exclusively as ornaments.

SUMMARY.

The law of battle for the possession of the female appears to prevail throughout the whole great class