THE FLYING CLOWN 



insects also. They use it in their own wild way and think 

 nothing about it. We say that it is their instinct that 

 leads them to choose places where they cannot easily be 

 seen. If you do not understand exactly w^hat instinct is, 

 do not feel worried, for there are some things about that 

 secret of Mother Nature that even the wisest men in the 

 world have not explained. But this we do know, that 

 when her instincts led Mother Nomer to choose the peb- 

 bly roof as a background for her mottled feathers, she 

 did just naturally very much the same thing that the 

 soldiers in the world-war did when they made use of 

 great guns painted to look like things they were not, and 

 ships painted to look like the waves beneath them and 

 the clouds in the sky above. Only, the soldiers did not 

 use their protective coloration naturally and by instinct. 

 They did this by taking thought; and very proud they 

 felt, too, of being able to do this by hard study. They 

 talked about it a great deal and the French taught the 

 world a new^ word, camouflage, to call it by. And their 

 war-time camouflage was wonderful, even though it was 

 only a clumsy imitation of what Mother Nature did 

 when the feathers of Mother Nomer were made to grow 

 dappled like little blotches of light and dark ; or, to put 

 it the other way about, when the bird was led, by her 

 instinct, to choose for the nesting-time a place where 

 she did not show. 



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