opened with a demonstration. After what has passed,' cried Gramont, throwing his portfolio on the table as he took his seat, 'no Foreign Minister worthy of his place would hesitate to declare war.' Le Boeuf said that the Prussians were buying horses in Belgium and that there was not a moment to spare. And then the ball was thrown to and fro. The despatches of Benedetti had given the impression that King William had been courteous, and a sovereign was certainly within his rights in declining to give audience to an ambassador. On the other hand, how could the Special Supplement, containing, as it did, an official telegram, only to be supplied from official sources, be otherwise construed than as a deliberate provocation? The same men who had hoped for peace the day before now held that peace was improbable, and at 4 p.m. it was unanimously determined to call out the reserves. Forty minutes later Le Boeuf left the Tuileries to take the necessary steps.

Then ensued one of the most dramatic revulsions in the history of that tormented day. A fresh despatch arrived from Benedetti giving to the language of the King of Prussia a less peremptory form, and sending a sudden spasm of indecision through the veins of that haggard and harassed assemblage. Perhaps they had been precipitate, had neglected expedients, might yet honourably withdraw? In the general agony Gramont threw out an idea which was caught up as an instrument of salvation-an appeal to a general congress. With tears coursing down his cheeks the Emperor bade Ollivier, his ready writer and rhetorician, pen a Declaration of appeal to the Powers, and when at last this had been approved the Council dispersed. It was 6.30 p.m. The tired men stumbled out into the evening air.

Not many minutes elapsed before M. Ollivier's beautiful Declaration began to burn a hole in his pocket. As he reflected in the cool air on the decision which had been taken in the heat of an exhausting Council, he thought it cowardly. Returning to the Chancery, he summoned his wife, his brothers, and his secretaries, and read out to them the 'pathetic and eloquent' document which was intended for the consumption of the legislature on the following day. Cries of astonishment and indignation went up from the domestic circle which had Vol. 213.-No. 424.

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been thus hastily initiated into a secret of the State. And if such was M. Ollivier's return to his dovecote, we may imagine the discomfort of the Emperor among the war-hawks of the Palace. What!' cried the Empress to Le Bœuf, do you also approve this cowardice? Dishonour yourself if you must, do not dishonour the Emperor.' In a paroxysm of penitence a fresh Council was summoned to meet after dinner at St Cloud.

It was one of those delicious summer evenings before August has parched the leaves, when the air is hot but not heavy, and the stars shine softly overhead, throwing their pale reflections into the slow, languid waters of the Seine. Here and there groups of men and women strolled and chatted along the quays and shaded alleys of the Bois de Boulogne. A serene peace brooded over Paris. M. Ollivier drove to St Cloud and found that the Emperor's thoughts had taken the same course as his own. The Congress was unsatisfactory; neither the Chambers nor the streets would stand it. 'Mud would be thrown at our carriages,' said the Minister, and they would hoot us.' After some moments of silence the Emperor answered, 'See in what a plight a government may sometimes find itself. Even if we had no motive for war which we could avow, we should nevertheless be obliged to resolve on it to obey the will of the people.' The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the other Ministers, and for the first time the Empress took her seat at the Council board. Le Boeuf began by explaining that he had called out the reserves, but that this should not affect the issue; he could recall the order and resign. Then Gramont read the latest telegrams. They showed that the refusal of the King of Prussia to receive Benedetti was being officially communicated to foreign governments. The Council determined that the reserves should be called out. There was no occasion for voting, nor did the Empress open her lips. The final step was left for the morning. At 9 a.m. on July 15 the Cabinet met again at St Cloud, and again the Empress was present. The mood of Paris was angry and unmistakable, and as the Ministers drove to the Palace they were assailed by cries of À Berlin' and 'Vive la guerre. When Gramont had finished reading the Declaration, the Emperor clapped his hands. The war was voted

with unanimity, the Empress alone neither speaking nor casting a vote; but it is characteristic of Napoleon that as his Ministers were on their way to the Legislative Assembly he received Witzthum, the Austrian Minister at Brussels, who was going to Vienna, and asked him to request Francis Joseph to summon a congress that peace might be preserved. But the die was cast. The Chamber vociferously applauded the intrepid spirit of the Cabinet, and by an imposing majority voted a credit of fifty millions to the war.

Such, in bare outline, is the painful story. Thiers puts the responsibility for the war upon the blunders of the Liberal Cabinet; the Emperor more wisely divided the blame between himself, his Ministers, and the Chambers; M. Ollivier brings into special prominence the bellicose attitude of the Conservative party which at the critical moment sacrificed a great diplomatic advantage by pressing the Emperor to ask for guarantees. is clear that the French might have honourably avoided war after the withdrawal of the Hohenzollern Prince, and that in this sense Bismarck spoke the truth when he told Lord Goschen that the war was not of his making. It is also clear that nothing gave Bismarck greater pleasure than the news that the French were producing fresh demands. But what a satire is this exhibition of inconsequence, hesitation, and division upon the vaunted solidity of the Liberal Empire! The most critical decision in the whole course of the negotiations is taken by the Emperor and the Foreign Minister without the knowledge of the Cabinet, and the Chief of the Cabinet accepts a policy which he does not approve, because when it comes to his ears it is already irreversible. In spite of all that M. Ollivier has written, Gramont's handling of the problem was either wholly incompetent or quite inconsistent with peaceful desires. M. Ollivier is generous to an honourable colleague, from whom he was divided more widely than he seems to imagine; but, at least, at this great crisis of national destiny the two Ministers were united in a common failing. Neither of them kept his head.

H. A. L. FISHER.

Art. 6.-BIRDS AND THEIR COLOURS.*

An

1. Concealing-Coloration in the Animal Kingdom. exposition of the laws of disguise through colour and pattern. By G. H. Thayer. Illustrated, 4to. New York: the Macmillan Company, 1909.

2. Farbenphotographie durch Körperfarben und mechanische Farbenanpassung in der Natur. Von O. Wiener. 'Annalen der Physik.' Vol. 55. Leipzig, 1895.

3. Evolution of the Colours of North American Land Birds. By Chas. A. Keeler. With 19 plates. San Francisco: California Academy of Sciences, 1893.

4. Ueber die Farben der Vogelfedern. By V. Haecker. Archiv fuer mikroscopische Anatomie, xxxv, pp. 68–87. Bonn: F. Cohen, 1890.

5. Ueber die Wirkung organischer Farbstoffe auf das Gefieder der Voegel bei stomachaler Darreichung. By C. Sauermann. Archiv f. Anatomie u. Physiologie, pp. 543-549. Leipzig: Veit and Co., 1889.

6. The Development of Colour in the Definitive Feather. By R. M. Strong. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard, pp. 147-184, 9 plates. Cambridge, Mass., for the Museum, 1902.

7. The Value of Colour in the Struggle for Life. By E. B. Poulton. Article xv in Darwin and Modern Science.' Edited by A. C. Seward. Cambridge: University Press, 1909.

MANY readers of the 'Quarterly Review' have probably seen the simple and yet marvellously effective models of a couple of ducks, exhibited in various museums, by which Mr Abbott H. Thayer was the first to explain that the white colour of the under surface of so many birds and fishes turns the unavoidable dark shadows into an invisible grey. That was a discovery so far-reaching and obvious that everybody wondered why he had not thought of it before. Mr Thayer, being an artist and

*This article contains the substance of a course of lectures delivered in the autumn of 1908 at the Lowell Institute of Boston, Mass. The coloration of birds covers, however, such a wide field that only some of its aspects are here dealt with, others, of great interest, such as the colours of the nestling plumage, seasonal changes male ornamental plumage, and above all, the protective coloration in the usually restricted sense, being scarcely touched upon.

an enthusiastic naturalist, has carried his investigations further, and these have now been published by his son in a volume sumptuously illustrated. His main theses are the following.

Concealing-coloration means coloration that matches the background. Beyond a certain distance all objects show mainly by their silhouette or outlines. The pattern and the bold colours cut up the silhouette and thus make the animal less conspicuous. The general principle of obliterative shading and of picture pattern has been well, perhaps best, expressed in some of his previous writings, when he said that the total abstract effect of the lights and shadows and colours of the surroundings is stamped upon the animal's coat.

‘Animals are conspicuous when in the wrong place, or, what comes to the same, when looked at from the wrong point of view, the right being that in which the creature appears at the crucial moment, when on the verge of catching or being caught.' This principle, applicable beyond doubt in many cases, has been illustrated by many surprising photographs and coloured drawingswitness the Blue Jays placed over sunlit snow, on plate vi. But it is a pity that the authors should press this idea too far, even to the verge of ridicule. Nothing will, for instance, obliterate a Scarlet Ibis or a resplendent White Egret; at least that is our experience, who have had the delight of watching such beauties in their haunts, and we must be permitted to doubt whether a red and white cloudy sunset sky is the proper background and crucial moment in the Roseate Spoonbill's life, cf. plate viii.

Concealment is important, but it is not everything in coloration, the wherewithal of which are the colours. To understand how they are produced and how they behave, it is necessary to mention some technical detail by way of introduction.

White is due either to the total reflection of light or to its multiple refraction by small particles which are themselves colourless but possess strong refractive power. Feathers are composed of countless cells with particles of various density within them. The opaque white of the pith of a feather is due to the innumerable air spaces in the pith. If these interstices and air spaces could be done