tertained as far back as 1846 by Craven,* | the present view the melanic tendency of the only addition to the theory required by modern evolution being that we must regard the white covering as having been acquired by the ordinary Darwinian process of the survival of the fittest, ie, by the climatic selection of those individuals best fitted to withstand the extremely low temperatures of their habitat. It is perfectly familiar to zoologists that most animals occasionally give rise to white varieties, so that the basic variations necessary for the establishment of the required modification in the color of the hair and feathers would not have been wanting during the gradual approach of the glacial epoch. It may be conjectured whether white may not have been the prevailing color among all warm-blooded animals during this period, with the exception, perhaps, of those species in which the severity of the climate may have been met by an equally effective thickening of the fur. Certain species which, like the stoat and ptarmigan, become white during winter, may, from this point of view, be regarded as reverting seasonally to the mode of coloration which in their ancestors was normal during the glacial epoch, the reversion being in these cases brought about by the same influences which formerly fixed white as the most advantageous form of covering. In accordance with this view, it is sometimes asserted that the stoat does not commonly turn white during winter in the south of England, excepting in very severe seasons.† Further observations on this point are much needed. In striking contrast to the white covering of Arctic and Alpine mammals and birds, it has been found that there is a quite opposite tendency for the insects to become darker and more suffused, this melanism being especially noticeable among many of the Lepidoptera. Although numerous speculations as to the cause of this phenomenon have from time to time been advanced, it is in the paper by Lord Walsingham above referred to that what appears to be a true cause has for the first time been suggested. The author has, in fact, most ingeniously extended the very argument which had been adduced to account for the white color of the mammals and birds to explain the quite opposite melanism of the insects. According to northern Lepidoptera must be ascribed to the natural selection of the darker forms owing to the advantage which these would possess in being able to absorb more of the solar radiation than their lighter congeners. The same action must be regarded as here bringing about opposite effects in the case of warm blooded animals the loss of heat by radiation is retarded by the white covering, whilst in insects, which develop but little heat by respiration, it is of the utmost importance to utilize as much as possible of the solar energy. This will be seen to be all the more necessary when it is considered that, under Arctic conditions, the solar rays have but little power, and that the pairing of the insects has to be effected with great rapidity. In order to test these views experimentally, the author exposed numer ous species of Lepidoptera of various colors to the sun's rays on a surface of snow, and observed the rate at which the insects sank beneath the surface. As might have been anticipated, the darker insects, like Tanagra charophyllata, sank more rapidly than white moths like Acidalia immutata, which made but little impression on the snow. The questions raised by these suggestions and observations certainly appear to be well worthy of consideration when discussing the subject of animal coloration. Thus the explanation of the melanism of Arctic insects now advanced may perhaps, when more fully elaborated, throw further light upon the theory of seasonal dimorphism first proposed by Weismann.* If, in accordance with the views of this author, we regard the present winter forms of these seasonally dimorphic Lepidoptera as the ancestral glacial types, it becomes clear why in such white species as Pieris napi, the parent glacial form Bryonia should be the darker. In the case of Araschnia levana the theory does not at first sight apply, inasmuch as the winter form is lighter than the summer generation (Prorsa); here, however, both forms are colored, and there would be but little difference in their relative heat-absorbing powers. The same remark may apply in the case of our own seasonally dimorphic species of Selenia and Ephyra. I may take the present opportunity of pointing out to those who possess the English edition of the "Studies in the Theory of Descent" that an error inadver Presidential Address to the Yorkshire Naturalists' tently occurs in the numbering of the figures in Plate I. Union, Doncaster, March 3, 1885. p. 67. Recreations in Shooting, p. 101. Figs. 2, 3, 4, and 5 should have been numbered respectively 3, 5, 2, and 4. I am indebted to Mr. E. B. R. M. Christy in Trans. Essex Field Club, vol. i. Poulton for kindly calling my attention to this transposition. I. GENERAL GORDON'S Life and Letters, Quarterly Review, Chambers' Journal, Scottish Review, Leisure Hour, Fortnightly Review, Leisure Hour, For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & Co. Single Numbers of THE LIVING AGE, 18 cents. IN A THEATRE. Capua, 72 B.C. WE were friends and comrades loyal, though I was of alien race, And he a free-born Samnite that followed the man from Thrace, And there in the mid-arena, he and I stood face to face. I was a branded swordsman, and he was supple and strong. They saved us alive from the battle, to do us this cruellest wrong, That each should slay the other there before the staring throng. Faces-faces-and faces! how it made my brain to spin! Beautiful faces of women, and tiger-souls therein ! And merry voices of girls that laughed, debating of who should win. Over us, burning and cloudless, dazzled the blue sky's dome; Far away to the eastward the white snow-peaks of his home; And in front the prefect, purple-clad, in the deadly might of Rome. COME, let us go into the lane, love mine, Athenæum. From The Quarterly Review. GENERAL GORDON'S LIFE AND LETTERS. CHARLES GEORGE GORDON came of a hard-fighting stock. His great-grandfather served under Sir John Cope, his grandfather fought with General Wolfe, and when he himself was born at Woolwich in 1833, his father was a distinguished officer in the Royal Artillery. As with others who have ultimately belied the predictions of their childhood, he was a delicate boy, and according to his own showing anything but a pattern cadet when he came into training for his future profession. It is told of him that when a child at Corfu, where his father held a command, his terror of guns of all descriptions was extreme, and that he would hide his head anywhere to escape the sound of firing. It was no test of pluck. The sailors used to encourage him to throw himself into the sea when they were swimming round the ship, and with perfect confidence he would leap towards them, utterly fearless. But at Woolwich most of his early days were passed. Fine opportunities lay to his hand as a lad, when he had the run of the gun-carriage department, nor was he slow in turning them to account. A carpenter made him a huge crossbow, with which no less than twentyeight squares of glass were broken at extreme ranges one Sunday afternoon. Nor would matters have ended here, in all probability, had not an infuriated officer brought things to a climax when a screw stuck into the wall of his room, just missing his head as he sat reading. A squirt was next constructed for him by one of his friends in the yard; it held a quart of water, and would throw a jet on to the windows of the cadets' lecture - room, which it was his highest ambition to get within the line of fire. He used to describe the long chase one of them had 1. The Story of Chinese Gordon. By Egmont Hake. London, 1884. 2. Colonel Gordon in Central Africa. By George Birkbeck Hill, D.C.L. London, 1881. 3. Ismailia. By Sir Samuel W. Baker, Pacha. London, 1874 4. Charles George Gordon, a Sketch. By Reginald H. Barnes and Charles Brown. London, 1885. 5. Papers Presented to both Houses of Parliament - Egypt No. 1. 1885. 6. Unpublished Private Correspondence, 1877-85. after him, till a friendly turning in the fortifications - whose every nook and corner was familiar to him, just hid him in time for escape. His time came to enter the walls of the Academy in due course, and it was an irksome period. Probably he began to feel even thus early that the restraint inseparable from military life was in his case abnormally difficult to bear, and throughout the whole of his career he was very conscious of it. Certain it is that he and the Woolwich authorities did not get on well together, and Gordon was kept longer at the Academy than any cadet of his time. But we find him with his commission at last, in the Royal Engineers, taking his full share of the terrible work in the trenches before Sebastopol (1855), and, curiously enough, laying the beginning of a lifelong friendship with Lord Wolseley, who was sent for special service in the batteries to which Gordon was attached. He drew upon himself much notice from his extreme fertility of resource and coolness of head under specially trying circumstances: once he was slightly wounded, but his escapes were extraordinary. Nor did his active duties end with the fall of Sebastopol. At no time was his life in greater danger than when he was told off with other officers of his corps to destroy the docks and the enormous gates which led to the harbor of Sebastopol. A shaft was sunk, one hundred feet deep, to get fairly at the foundations, and at the bottom of this on one occasion stood Gordon superintending the lowering of a blasting charge of five hundred pounds of gunpow. der. Something went wrong, and the whole mass fell out of the slings: he had but an instant to step backwards and extinguish the candle in his hand, or the results must have been frightful to all concerned. Perhaps he never enjoyed himself more than when his duties (on a special boundary commission) subsequent to the Crimean war took him along the Russian frontier. He spent some time in Turkey in Asia, made the ascent of Ararat and other mountains, and visited many places of great historical interest. No one could have gained greater kudos for tact, ac- religious impostor. Hung-tsue-schuen, at tivity, and energy throughout. He had the head of the Tai-pings in 1862, had many a story in after days to tell of men many points in common with Mohammed and their manners in somewhat irritating Ahmed in 1884. times, when boundaries had to be laid down, nor did his observations end there. With a spice of irony and fun, he used to describe the effect upon the very storks which built on roofs, beneath which suspi cious heads were playing the diplomatic game of chess. In one of their nests a goose egg was placed during the absence of the old bird. Gordon went on to relate: On her return she said nothing, but made the best of it. Sad to say, as the gosling developed, the poor stork was driven to dreadful shifts to save him from the public gaze, but all to no purpose. There was a terrible to-do in the whole colony. First one mother stork would come and satisfy herself as to common rumor by personal inspection, and then another, till they stood in rows, looking daggers at the unfortunate mother of the monstrosity. Finally a solemn conclave was held at a distance, and, apparently being for once of one mind, they all returned, and, pulling the wretched gosling out of the nest, despatched him forthwith. You could almost hear them saying: "This sort of thing will never do; who knows what he will grow up to?" To tell how "Chinese Gordon " won that title is hardly an easy task within ordinary limits. Suffice it to say, that the more one examines the characters of the soldiers he commanded, the enemy he fought against, and the Chinese government officials he was hampered with, so much more is one struck with the as tounding military skill he displayed throughout the suppression of the TaiPing rebellion. Seldom in history can it have fallen to the lot of one man to stand forth twice and attempt to stay the onward course of two huge rebellions. Gordon sprang into fame by saving the Chinese Empire from being destroyed by the Taipings; how he died in staving off the oncoming hordes of the Mahdi in the Soudan, the world will never forget. In each case we find an officer, whose prominent characteristic from first to last was a practical vigorous demonstration of the Christian faith that was in him, engaged in combating the fanatical influence of a Gordon began his task with a force some four thousand strong, men of all sorts, sizes, and nationalities. Esprit de corps showed itself at first in keeping up a name for looting and ruffianism. Each one made up his mind to fight for his own hand and his own pocket. But we soon find what this somewhat hopeless material became under the magic influence of the young commander, and we cannot do better than give a specimen taken from a fair sample of the doings of the "ever victorious army." It was necessary to storm the city of Taitsan: This was a great undertaking and full of peril. The place was garrisoned by 10,000 men, of whom 2,000 were picked braves, with several English, French, and American renegades serving at the guns; while his own force numbered only 3,000 of all arms. That, however, mattered little to him. He laid siege to the city forthwith. He took some outlying stockades and established his army in the west suburb, about 1,500 yards from the gate; he then seized upon the two bridges of the main canal. Working round the town, and keeping out of gunshot, he captured some small forts which protected the Quinsan road, and so cut the two centres asunder. At the distance of 600 yards from the walls he placed his guns in position, each covered with a portable wooden mantlet and flanked with riflemen. Thus prepared, he advanced with his artillery to within 100 yards, when he opened a scorching fire the fire of the enemy, which was brisk, but not upon the battlements, rapidly overpowering as yet damaging. He bridged the moat with gunboats from headquarters. In two hours he breached the walls, and his stormers crossed to the attack. Suddenly the wall was manned; a tremendous fire was poured down upon the heads of the column; the bridge was pelted with fire-balls, and in the confusion one of the gunboats was captured. Still Captain Bannen gallantly led on his column, and succeeded in mounting the breach. The enemy, headed by with spears, and the stormers, after a short the foreigners in his service, met the assault and bloody conflict, were compelled to retire. Gordon now cannonaded the breach for twenty minutes over the heads of his stormers; they mounted it once more, when the energy of those in front and the impetus of the men in |