64 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



upholds the views that the coloration on practically all 

 animals (including even the most vivid and advertising 

 colors and patterns) is really concealing — not that it was 

 concealing in some remote geologic past, but that it is 

 actually concealing to-day; and he attributes this to "nat- 

 ural selection, pure, simple, and omnipotent." He shows 

 both daring and versatility in his use of facts. Skunks, 

 crows, scarlet tanagers, white herons, and the like he cou- 

 rageously declares to be concealingly colored. Nor is he 

 daunted when his theory requires him' to show that the 

 same sky is of two diametrically opposite hues, so that it 

 may, under the same conditions, harmonize both with the 

 deep blue of a peacock's neck and the dazzling white of a 

 prongbuck's rump. He wishes to show that each object 

 fades into the sky; so he paints in colors the picture with 

 the peacock in it, making its neck and the sky of the same 

 brilliant azure tint; and he leaves uncolored the picture with 

 the prongbuck in it, so that in this case the sky and the 

 rump are both white. What would happen if the two ani- 

 mals changed places and wandered each into the other's 

 sky, he does not explain. Professor Poulton, presumably 

 speaking for and to the leading scientists of Great Britain, 

 highly praised the scientific worth of this book. It seems a 

 pity that he could not have included in his praise the equally 

 striking contention of the late Brother Jasper that "the 

 sun do move" round the earth. 



Professor Poulton's theory, developed both by him and 

 by Mr. Thayer, is that the eyes of a creature's prey or 

 adversary take into account the most minute details of 

 coloration. This may be so in the case of such an animal 

 as a tree-toad. It is certainly not so in most cases, how- 



