Note 443 — Chapter IX · ON CONCRETIONS, SPICULES, AND SPICULAR SKELETONS

As a matter of fact, the phenomena associated with the development of an “ocellus” are or may be of great complexity, inasmuch as they involve not only a graded distribution of pigment, but also, in “optical” coloration, a symmetrical distribution of structure or form. The subject therefore deserves very careful discussion, such as Bateson gives to it (Variation, chap. xii). This, by the way, is one of the very rare cases in which Bateson appears inclined to suggest a purely physical explanation of an organic phenomenon: “The suggestion is strong that the whole series of rings (in Morpho) may have been formed by some one central disturbance, somewhat as a series of concentric waves may be formed by the splash of a stone thrown into a pool, etc.”