112 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



selectionists to the fact that the lion has changed its hab- 

 its and become "a dweller in the open," while the tiger 

 (so closely kin to the lion that the species interbreed, their 

 skeletons being almost indistinguishable) dwells "in dense 

 jungle, where his stripes, harmonizing with the tall reed 

 stems, make him invisible, and enable him to stalk his 

 prey without being seen." This explanation is probably 

 opposed to the actual facts. The tiger is very rarely found 

 among reed stems; reed-dwellers like the lechwi are rarely 

 striped, and, as we have already said, Kearton's photo- 

 graphs show that the stripes are much more conspicuous in 

 the shadow of a jungle than in the open under the sunlight. 

 The sambur is one of the animals on which the tiger habitu- 

 ally preys; the two dwell in the same dense jungles; the 

 sambur is solidly colored, a dark unicolor without counter- 

 shading, and yet Hornaday has shown that it is peculiarly 

 hard to see, harder than the tiger. Moreover, the tigers 

 of Mongolia and Manchuria live in surroundings wholly 

 distinct from those of Hither and Farther India. We do 

 not believe that the tiger's coloration, as being of any use to 

 it in eluding the vigilance of its prey, is a factor of survival 

 value, or has been developed by natural selection for this 

 particular utilitarian purpose. 



The cheetah is a diurnal animal, and lives far more 

 completely in the open than the lion. Yet the cheetah has 

 retained its spots. The spotted coat of the leopard is often 

 advanced as "the most perfect imaginable concealer," hav- 

 ing "the flecked leaf and sunlight pattern" best suited for 

 a dweller in woodland. There is advantage in consid- 

 ering together these four big cats, the lion, tiger, leopard, 

 and cheetah, with the two big American cats, the puma (or 



