“An animal floating about in the sea,” writes Beddard, “perfectly transparent, but decked with dense black patches, of the size of saucers, would betray its whereabouts even to the least observant; if the observer were stimulated by hunger or fear, the conspicuousness would not be lessened. . . . Besides the internecine warfare which is continually going on amongst the smaller surface organisms, they are devoured wholesale by the larger pelagic fish, and by whales and other Cetacea. A whale, rushing through the water with open mouth and gulping down all before him, is not the least inconvenienced by the invisibility of the organisms devoured in such enormous quantities; nor do a solid phalanx of herring or mackerel stop to look carefully for their food: they take what comes in their way, and get plenty in spite of ‘protective absence of colouration.’ “If the transparency of the pelagic organisms be due entirely to natural selection, it is remarkable that there is so little modification in this direction among the species inhabiting the bottom at such depths as are accessible to the sun’s rays; the advantage gained by this transparency and consequent invisibility would be equally great. And yet this is not the case; the bulk of the bottom fauna of the coasts are brilliantly coloured animals, and those that show any protective colouring at all appear to be coloured so as to resemble stones or sea-weeds.”[7] Before leaving the subject of marine animals, we may point out that the majority of the creatures that live in the everlasting blackness of the depths of the ocean display exceedingly conspicuous colouring, and this colouring seems to be constant. In such cases the colouring cannot be useful as such to its possessors. The same may be said of the colour of blood, or of the colouring of the internal tissues of all organisms. We must not lose sight of the fact that every organism, and every component part thereof, must of necessity be either of some colour or perfectly transparent. It seems to us that since the appearance of _The Origin of Species_ zoologists have tended to exaggerate the importance of colouring to organisms; they frequently speak of it as though it were the one and only factor in the struggle for existence. It is on this account that they feel it incumbent upon them to find ingenious explanations for every piece of colouring displayed by every plant or animal. Unimportance of Colour The tendency to exaggerate the importance to an animal of its colouring is doubtless in large part due to the fact that many zoologists are content to study nature in museums rather than in the open. Some of those who observe organisms in their natural surroundings, especially in such favourable localities as the tropics, seem to be of opinion that natural selection has but little influence on the colouration of organisms.