2o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



COXCEALIXG COLORATION 1 



By ABBOTT H. THAYER 



ilONADNOCIC, N. H. 



A 



the last meeting of the American Ornithologists' Union, in 

 Washington, some forty naturalists looked in broad daylight 

 straight at a small stuffed deer that wore from its dorsal line down its 

 sides two white stripes in imitation of those of certain African antelopes. 

 These stripes were in every respect such as Theodore Eoosevelt says 

 have no concealing virtue of any kind whatsoever. 2 Yet they so com- 

 pletely concealed this deer in an almost clean-shorn public park that 

 although for each of the forty spectators I pointed straight at the deer 

 only ten yards away, not one of them detected it. The animal was 

 placed just above the eye-level of the spectator, exactly as African 

 antelopes would be above that of the creeping lions or leopards. And, 

 exactly as would commonly be the case with the antelopes, the white 

 stripes absolutely counterfeited the glimpses of the sky-background 

 seen through the thin half leafless bush that intervened. When the 

 white stripes were removed the spectators exclaimed at how clearly one 



1 These wholly unretouched illustrations absolutely demonstrate the wonder- 

 ful concealing effect of the white patterns that Eoosevelt and others say have no 

 concealing effect whatsoever. These play, as Eoosevelt truly asserts, little or no 

 part when the wearer is out on the safe open plain, but seem designed for 

 making him the very worst of targets when he tries to dodge the spring of an 

 ambushed lion or leopard, especially at night, just as the night hawk's colors, 

 dark and conspicuous to terrestrial eyes through all his safe aerial hunting, 

 prove to be an unmistakable picture of his background when at last he squats 

 on the bare rock in danger from predatory birds and mammals. No one can 

 study these oryx head pictures without perceiving that, against the ground, the 

 brown (of course countershaded) head is hard to distinguish, while the black- 

 and-white one is very conspicuous. On the other hand, when the same two heads 

 are looked at from below, i. e., against the sky, it is the brown one that shows, 

 and the brilliant black-and-white one that is now hard to detect. It is of this 

 black-and-white oryx head that Eoosevelt writes: "A curious instance of the 

 lengths to which some protective-coloration theorists go is afforded by the fact 

 that they actually treat these bold markings as obliterative or protective." 

 Colonel Eoosevelt, like the rest of the world, seems never to have thought to 

 find out how these patterns look from a lower level, such as lions and leopards 

 necessarily see from, they being under three feet tall, while the oryx and zebra 

 are nearer five. This great oversight invalidates almost all that has ever been 

 written on this subject. 



2 ' ' African Game Trails, ' ' Appendix E. 



