and the chinchilla; the rosy cheeks and pink lips of
the English maiden; the whole catalogue of dyes, paints, and pigments;
and last of all, the colors of art in every age and nation, from the red
cloth of the South Seas, the lively frescoes of the Egyptian and the
subdued tones of Hellenic painters, to the stained windows of Poictiers
and the Madonna of the Sistine Chapel." Besides these books, Mr. Allen
has written for the series called 'English Worthies' a sympathetic 'Life
of Charles Darwin' (1885).

THE COLORATION OF FLOWERS

From 'The Colors of Flowers'

The different hues assumed by petals are all thus, as it were, laid up
beforehand in the tissues of the plant, ready to be brought out at a
moment's notice. And all flowers, as we know, easily sport a little in
color. But the question is, Do their changes tend to follow any regular
and definite order? Is there any reason to believe that the modification
runs from any one color toward any other? Apparently there is. The
general conclusion to be set forth in this work is the statement of such
a tendency. All flowers, it would seem, were in their earliest form
yellow; then some of them became white; after that, a few of them grew
to be red or purple; and finally, a comparatively small number acquired
various shades of lilac, mauve, violet, or blue. So that if this
principle be true, such a flower as the harebell will represent one of
the most highly developed lines of descent; and its ancestors will have
passed successively through all the intermediate stages. Let us see what
grounds can be given for such a belief.

Some hints of a progressive law in the direction of a color-change from
yellow to blue are sometimes afforded to us even by the successive
stages of a single flower. For example, one of our common little English
forget-me-nots, _Myosotis versicolor_, is pale yellow when it first
opens; but as it grows older, it becomes faintly pinkish, and ends by
being blue, like the others of its race. Now, this sort of color-change
is by no means uncommon; and in almost all known cases it is always in
the same direction, from yellow or white, through pink, orange, or red,
to purple or blue. For example, one of the wall-flowers, _Cheiranthus
chamoeleo_, has at first a whitish flower, then a citron-yellow, and
finally emerges into red or violet. The petals of _Stytidium
fructicosum_ are pale yellow to begin with, and afterward become light
rose-colored. An evening