The American Museum Journal 
Mor. Xx NOVEMBER, 1910 No. 7 
PROTECTIVE COLORATION IN THE HABITAT GROUPS OF 
BIRDS 
HILE the habitat groups of birds make their strongest appeal to 
most Museum visitors through the universal love of the beau- 
tiful, it must not be forgotten that mounted specimens placed in 
a natural setting permit study of the animal in relation to its environment. 
The origin of the name “snake-bird,” for example, as applied to the Anhinga 
is at once obvious when one sees in the group representing this species 
the bird swimming with the body submerged and only the slender sinuous 
snake-like neck and head exposed. The wading stilt, betraying the func- 
tion of the exceptionally long legs, and the feeding flamingo, with upturned 
bill pressed into the mud, also illustrate the importance of natural surround- 
ings for exhibition specimens. 
The necessity of seeing the bird in its natural habitat is particularly 
evident when one attempts to explain the relation between the color of an 
animal and its immediate environment. Nearly every one of the habitat 
groups of birds will present some evidence in support of this fact. Let us 
look, for example, at the first group to the right as we enter the hall. It 
is based on studies made on Cobb’s Island, Virginia, and contains, among 
other birds, numerous black skimmers with their newly hatched young. 
Several of the latter, mounted directly from photographs from life, are 
shown in the pose they assume at the command of the parent in the 
presence of danger, and are so flattened out against the sand that they 
seem almost to fuse with it; even in the group they are remarkably incon- 
spicuous, while in life they are almost invisible. 
The inquiring visitor noting this fact will doubtless ask, how then is the 
correspondingly conspicuous black plumage of the adult bird to be ex- 
plained; assuredly it is not protective, and a reply to the question is that 
the adult skimmer avoids observation by excessive wariness. Up to the 
time the studies for this group were made, no naturalist appears to have 
seen a skimmer on its nest, and it was currently believed that the bird sat 
upon its eggs only during the night. Observations and photographs made 
from a blind showed that the skimmer returned to the little hollow in the 
sand in which its eggs were laid, just as soon as it felt that it was not under 
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