106 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



spots (the patterns, however, being very different in dif- 

 ferent forms) ; elsewhere these are reduced in the old males 

 almost to the point of total disappearance. Their foes are 

 everywhere the same. Their conditions of life vary as 

 much concerning certain of the harnessed forms — the form 

 we found in the dry, open, thin forest of the Lado, for 

 instance, compared with the form found in the dense wet 

 jungle of Uganda — as they do between the harnessed forms 

 and the nearly solid-colored forms. Solid-colored duikers 

 are found in the haunts of both the solid-colored and the 

 patterned bushbucks. Under these circumstances it is im- 

 possible to regard the pattern or lack of pattern as having 

 any survival value in concealing the animal from its foes; 

 some factor other than natural selection working toward a 

 concealing coloration has been at work in securing the re- 

 tention of the pattern in some forms and its reduction or 

 elimination in others. The great explorer and naturalist 

 Dr. Schweinfurth regarded the harnessed bushbuck as 

 conspicuous because of its striped and spotted coat. I am 

 inclined to agree with him; but in any event it is quite 

 impossible that one form of bushbuck is concealingly col- 

 ored because it does possess, and the other because it does 

 not possess, the stripes and spots. 



Of the other bush game the reedbuck is colored much 

 like the white-tail deer. It trusts to hiding for conceal- 

 ment. So does the oribi, where the grass is long; but where 

 the grass is short its habits are like those of the gazelles. 

 The duiker is, of all these antelope, the one that can most 

 properly be called concealingly colored ; and we are inclined 

 to think that its dull gray, slightly countershaded coat 

 does have a concealing value. But we are not certain, for 



