COLORATION 113 



cougar) and the jaguar; four of the six we have ourselves 

 carefully studied in their native haunts. As soon as this 

 study is seriously undertaken it will be seen that it is infi- 

 nitely harder to draw sound conclusions than the extreme 

 partisans of selection and concealing coloration admit. In 

 the first place, as to the loss of spots by the lion and puma, 

 alleged to be because of their taking to a life in the open: 

 The cheetah lives more in the open than either, and is more 

 diurnal in its habits, yet it has retained its spots. At a 

 short distance in the African sunlight these spots disappear; 

 probably in view of the habits of the cheetah it would be 

 of no slightest consequence to it if the coloration of the 

 lion, leopard, or tiger were substituted for the coloration it 

 actually possesses. 



Moreover, the spotted cats, the leopard and jaguar, and 

 the unicolored cats, the lion and puma, have for ages pos- 

 sessed overlapping ranges, in which both types of coloration 

 have persisted side by side practically unchanged and with 

 seemingly equal benefit to the wearers. The New-World 

 and Old-World couples, each of one spotted and one uni- 

 colored cat, reverse conditions of distribution. In the Old 

 World the spotted leopard is far more widely distributed 

 than the unicolored lion and occupies most of the lion's 

 range and habitat. In the New World, on the contrary, 

 the unicolored cat, the puma, occupies a far wider range, 

 which includes most of the jaguar's range and habitat. In 

 most of the open country in which the lion is found, from 

 Somaliland and the Lado and East Africa to the regions 

 south of the Zambesi, the leopard is also found; and every- 

 where within this vast range they are most often found in 

 the same cover of thorn-trees, bushes, reeds, and grass; al- 



