84 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



tiger by Mr. Kearton's interesting moving pictures of a 

 wild tiger; as the beast comes through the jungle its stripes 

 are very distinct, but the moment it steps into the sunlight 

 the stripes disappear as if by magic, and the animal appears 

 to be of a light monochrome. In Africa, in the same fashion, 

 a cheetah at a httle distance looks like a lioness in color, 

 and a giraffe appears of a uniform neutral tint. 



The stripes of the zebra disappear in like fashion. One 

 of the amusing contradictions of the ultra concealing-color- 

 ationists is afforded by Mr. Gregory, the author of "The 

 Great Rift Valley," who considered zebras to be concealingly 

 colored because (at a distance) he could not see their stripes; 

 whereas later it became the fashion for the average writer 

 of the school to insist that they were concealingly colored 

 because he could see their stripes. The two best ob- 

 servers among African hunters of wide experience, Selous 

 and Stigand, dwell especially on the great conspicuousness 

 of the giraffe and zebra. As we ourselves have observed, 

 the zebra often shows either white or black at a distance, 

 according to the position of the sun. The general tint of the 

 ordinary giraffe at a distance did not seem to us advertising; 

 but where the pattern could be seen at all it had a slight 

 advertising value, and the color of the reticulated giraffe was 

 always advertising. But the size and shape of the giraffe 

 are such that, where it can be made out at all in the 

 landscape, it can be made out at too great a distance for 

 the pattern to be seen. 



Mr. Thayer's book is a valuable contribution so long as 

 attention is strictly confined to what it says of colors in 

 nature from the artist's view-point. His elaboration of the 

 importance of countershading in concealing objects under 



