204 JUNGLE FOLK 



cheeks are whitish, as are the sides of the body ; but 

 these are separated by a black bar, so that the bird 

 has stamped on its breast a black cross. There is also 

 a black or very dark brown bar that runs from the 

 chin through the eye. The hen is an earthy-brown 

 bird, the plumage being tinged with grey above and 

 reddish below. There is nothing peculiar in her 

 colouring. But for her size, she might pass for a hen 

 sparrow. The colouring of the cock, however, is very 

 remarkable. Almost every bird in existence, which is 

 not uniformly coloured, is of a much lighter hue below 

 than above. In the cock finch-lark this relation is 

 reversed. I cannot call to mind any other Indian bird, 

 unless it be the cock brown-backed robin (Thamnobia 

 cambaiensis) , in which this phenomenon occurs. More- 

 over, the arrangement of colour — dark above and pale 

 below — is not confined to birds,but runs through nearly 

 the whole of the animal kingdom. So much so that 

 Mr. Thayer asserts that the phenomenon is a striking 

 example of protective colouration. The fact that a 

 bird or mammal is darker in hue above than below 

 renders it less conspicuous than it would be were it 

 coloured alike all over, since the pale under parts tend 

 to counteract the effects of Hght and shade. A few 

 creatures, as, for example, the skunk in America, are 

 darker below than above. These are usually cited 

 as examples of warning colouration. The skunk, as 

 everyone knows, is able when attacked to eject a very 

 foetid and blinding excretion, so that very few animals 

 prey upon it. Consequently, the light-coloured back 

 and the erect tail are supposed to act as danger signals 



