What is melanism?

Abstract The ‘colour’ black is a strong motif in life. It conjures dark, mysterious, and fre selves wraiths. Indeed, Shakespeare, in sonnet 147, describes one who has driven their lover to madness and death as being ‘as black as hell’. The association with death extends further to the clothes worn in many cultures when mourning the passing of a loved one. The blackening of skin in bruising is a short lived reminder of painful injury, while a black mark results from bad behaviour. Black in several Oriental nations is a badge of servitude, slavery, and low birth. In the City of London, Black Monday was so-named to commemorate a stock exchange crash, although Black Monday also refers to 14 April 1360 when many men and horses of Edward Ill’s army, lying outside Paris, died of exposure. We refer to a relative who behaves antisocially as the black sheep of the family. Our word blackguard seems to point to this meaning; the Latin niger sometimes being used to mean bad or unpropitious. To be black-balled generally means to be excluded from some club or society. The term originates from the practice of voting on whether or not a prospective candidate should be admitted by placing coloured balls into a box, a white or red ball being usually used to indicate acceptance, and a black ball to indicate rejection. Judges used to wear a black cap when they passed the sentence of death on a prisoner. Black arts were and are practised by conjurors, wizards, witches, and warlocks, who professed to have dealings with the devil; black here meaning diabolical or wicked, possibly derived from nigromancy, a corruption of necromancy.