PDF - Wallace Online

414 TROPICAL NATUREHomer's time he had advanced to the imperfect discriminationof red and yellow, but no further ;the green of grassand foliage or the blue of the sky being never once referred to.These curious facts cannot, however, be held to prove sorecent an originfor colour -sensations as they would at firstsight appear to do, because we have seen that both flowersand fruits have become diversely coloured in adaptation tothe visual powers of insects, birds, and mammals. Redbeing a very common colour of ripe fruits which attract birdsto devour them and thus distribute their seeds, we may besure that the contrast of red and green is to them very wellmarked. It is indeed just possible that birds may have amore advanced development of the colour-sense than mammals,because the teeth of the latter commonly grind up anddestroy the seeds of the larger fruits and nuts which theydevour, and which are not usually coloured ;but the irritatingeffect of bright colours on some of them does not supportthis view. It seems most probable, therefore, that man'sperception of colour in the time of Homer was little if anyinferior to what it is now, but that, owing to a variety ofcauses, no precise nomenclature of colours had become established.One of these causes probably was, that the coloursof the objects of most importance, and those which were mostfrequently referred to in songs and poems, were uncertainand subject to variation. Blood was light or dark red, orwhen dry, blackish ;iron was gray or dark or rusty ;bronzewas shining or dull ; foliage was of all shades of yellow,green, or brown and horses or cattle had no one distinctive;colour. Other objects, as the sea, the sky, and wine, changedin tint according to the light, the time of day, and the modeof viewing them and thus; colour, indicated at firstby referenceto certain coloured objects, had no fixity. Things whichhad more definite and purer colours as certain species offlowers, birds, and insects were probably too insignificant ortoo much despised to serve as colour-terms ;and even theseoften vary, either in the same or in allied species, in a mannerwhich would render their use unsuitable. Colour-names,being abstractions, must always have been a late developmentin language, and their comparative unimportance in an earlystate of society and of the arts would still further retard their