page_title: Animal Coloration (book)
section_title: Context
hierarchical_section_title: Animal Coloration (book) / Context
caption_attribution_description: English: Title page of first edition of Animal Coloration by Frank Evers Beddard 1892
context_page_description: Animal Coloration, or in full Animal Coloration: An Account of the Principal Facts and Theories Relating to the Colours and Markings of Animals, is a book by the English zoologist Frank Evers Beddard, published by Swan Sonnenschein in 1892. It formed part of the ongoing debate amongst zoologists about the relevance of Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection to the observed appearance, structure, and behaviour of animals, and vice versa.
  Beddard states in the book that it contains little that is new, intending instead to give a clear overview of the subject. The main topics covered are camouflage, then called 'protective coloration'; mimicry; and sexual selection. Arguments for and against these aspects of animal coloration are intensively discussed in the book.
  The book was reviewed in 1892 by the major journals including The Auk, Nature, and Science. The scientist reviewers Joel Asaph Allen, Edward Bagnall Poulton and Robert Wilson Shufeldt took up different positions on the book and accordingly praised or criticized Beddard's work.
context_section_description: Beddard (1858–1925) was an English zoologist specializing in Annelid worms, but writing much more widely on topics including mammals and zoogeography. He also contributed articles on earthworms, leeches and nematode worms to the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. His decision to write an accessible book on animal coloration falls into this pattern. Beddard wrote Animal Coloration at a time when scientists' confidence in Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection was at a low ebb. Beddard's book was part of an ongoing debate among zoologists about how far natural selection affected animals, and how far other forces – such as the direct action of light – might be the causes of observed features such as the colours of animals. Edward Bagnall Poulton's far more strongly pro-Darwinian book The Colours of Animals had appeared just two years earlier in 1890.
caption: Title page of first edition, 1892
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