Now, if there be any correlation between the power of resisting damp and
the colour an animal bears, it is quite probable that animals of this
colour, whether or no it be conspicuous, are likely to survive in
preference to those who are more protectively coloured. There is some
evidence that in certain cases, at any rate, resistance to climate is
correlated with colour peculiarities. For example, some fanciers assert
that yellow-legged poultry resist cold and damp better than those whose
legs are not yellow. Fowls which have yellow legs have also yellow skins.
In this connection the almost universal assumption of orange feet by
domestic guinea-fowls is significant. Normally the feet of these birds
are black, and their natural African habitat is a dry one.
A grey or white colour appears to be correlated with resistance to cold.
In birds this may perhaps be explained by the fact that the feathers in
some light-coloured varieties are longer than in those of
normally-coloured ones. Thus mealy-coloured canaries have longer feathers
than brightly-coloured ones.
The Arctic Skua, having no enemies to fear, stands in no need of
protective colouration. It would therefore seem that the white-breasted
form of this bird becomes more numerous as it nears the north pole, not
because of the closer assimilation of its plumage to the colour of the
snowy surroundings, but because the bird has to resist the greater degree
of cold the farther north it finds itself. Similarly, in the region of
the south pole the albino form of the Giant Petrel (_Ossifraga gigantea_)
becomes common. Both these birds are themselves predatory and not liable
to be preyed upon.
The curious china-white legs of some desert birds—as, for example,
coursers and larks—would seem to indicate a power of resisting the hot
rays radiating from the sand on which these creatures dwell.
White quills do not wear well either in domestic birds or in wild
albinos. This may explain why it is that when a white wild species of
bird has any black in its plumage the black is almost invariably on the
tips of the wings.
White quill-feathers are one of the commonest variations observed in
domesticated birds, nevertheless they are as rare as complete whiteness
among birds in their natural state.
A chestnut or bay colour in mammals appears to be correlated with a high
rate of speed, as in the thoroughbred horse. This perhaps explains why so
many of the swiftest species of antelope, such as the hartebeests and
sassaby (_Damaliscus lunatus_), are chestnut bay in colour. It is further
a remarkable fact that in the Black-buck (_Antilope cervicapra_) and the
Nilgai (_Boselaphus tragocamelus_) the females, which are faster than the
males, are not black or grey like their respective males, but reddish.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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