coMMo.y sa'.vsa; .\\i> am mm. (OI.oUMIoS 



ir 



>cUllk' on till' .-licet. 'riiriT i,-; |)|-nlialil y 

 IK) such tliiii,ix aiiumi^f iiuiiiiiiiiils iiml 

 l»ird.< as a coloration wliicli under all 

 the conditions of the wearer's life is 

 always either coniplotely revealing; oi- 

 ciunplrlely conccalin»;; hut it may he 

 one or tiic other. !•!•!> tiinos out of the 

 thousand. Out in the Bad Lands of 

 the Little Missouri I once saw a raven 

 airainst a coal seam in a ditV. ami it> 

 color for the moment was conccdim: : 

 and once at dusk a poor-will lit on the 

 hare verantla heside me, and its color- 

 atiim was for the moment revealing, 

 ^'et under all ordinary circumstances, 

 the diroct reverse is true in each case; 

 and it is just as ahsurd to deny that a 

 raven (or a crow, or a grackle, or a cow 

 hunting, or a white egret, or a full- 

 grown hlack and white skimmer on its 

 nest) is revealingly colored and con- 

 spicuous, as to deny that a whip-poor- 

 will (or a nesting grouse, or a desert 

 lark, or a iledgling skimmer) is con- 

 cealingly colored and inconspicuous. 



However. I will attempt the ''demon- 

 stration.'' Tiie proughorn on the plains 

 of the Little Missouri was conspicuous 

 exactly as a wildeheest on the plains of 

 the Athi or the Guaso Xyiro was con- 

 spicuous. If camped for any length of 

 time in their haunts, I always grew to 

 know the jirohahle range of each group 

 of pronghorns or wildeheests, as the 

 case might he ; and then there was 

 never the slightest difficulty in seeing 

 them. Around my ranch there were 

 occasions when a small herd, or a 

 couple of pronghorns, or a single ani- 

 mal would settle down in a certain lo- 

 cality: and then it was impossible not 

 to .«ee them if I went thither: T could 

 always find the party of docs and kids, 

 or the solitary old buck, or the two 

 yearlings, which I expected to find. In 

 the same way, in Africa, in the camps 

 where we spent a considerable length of 

 time, there would often be wildebeest 

 stationary in the locality; in one in- 

 stance which I remeinl)er there was a 

 herd which haunted the neiixhborhood 



of a hill and. on the other -ide of i-amp, 

 an olil hull which kept with a herd of 

 gazelles, and I could always find either 

 without dilliculty. 'I'he coloration of 

 the |ir<inghuck nuule me see it even 

 when I was half a mile away or more; 

 the wildclieot >I ruck mv eve when I 

 was nearly a mile away: and under su<h 

 circutnslances to deny that the ani- 

 mal was "conspicuous" seems to me to 

 rcpifsi-nt (piilihling over terminology, 

 and not the ell'ort to appreciate facts and 

 to draw therefrom honest conclusions. 



Is the above not a "demonstration"? 

 Conspicuousness is of course relative, 

 just as is the ca.^e with speed. On the 

 ])lains where the i)ronghorn dwelt there 

 were skunks and jack rabbits. The 

 jack rabbits ran faster than the skunks. 

 I assert this in the "sweeping" and 

 "reckless" manner to which Professor 

 Longley objects. The fact was "obvi- 

 ous'' — again to use the word to which 

 Professor Longley objects. I never 

 "demonstrated'' this fact, however, any 

 more than 1 "demonstrated"' the con- 

 spicuousnt'ss of the prongbuck. One fact 

 stood just as much in need of demon- 

 stration as the other, and no more so. 

 Whoever needed to have either fact 

 "demonstrated" to him would have 

 quarreled with .'Esop or Uncle Kemus 

 about the relative running capacities of 

 a rabljit or hare and a tortoise. 



There must be a foundation of com- 

 mon sense for every scientific struc- 

 ture. Until a man understands that a 

 crow is conspicuous and a wood frog in- 

 conspicuous (and that there are very, 

 very many — doubtless thousands— of 

 other animals as revealingly colored as 

 the crow and of yet others as conceal- 

 ingly colored as the frog), he has not 

 learned the .\ B C of animal colora- 

 tion; and if he perversely refuses to 

 learn the alphabet his future studies 

 will not tend to enlightenment. 



Mr. Thayer's book is delightfully 

 written and contains valuable artistic 

 truths: just as Milton's account of the 

 creation of life in Paradise Lost con- 



