COLORATION 119 



wapiti are not countershaded and are revealingly colored; 

 but both seek to escape notice by immobility and stealth, 

 and the wapiti crouches flat like a deer. The Rocky Moun- 

 tain and coast blacktails are, at least in some of their forms, 

 not countershaded; often, owing to the black hair on the 

 chest, the fore parts of their bodies are inversely counter- 

 shaded; but they crouch and skulk, and the general tint of 

 their coloration is not revealing, and under certain condi- 

 tions is concealing, although the white rump of the Rocky 

 Mountain blacktail is always revealing. The mountain- 

 sheep has a revealing white rump; its general coloration in 

 the United States and Mexico is concealing rather than re- 

 vealing; but the black and white sheep of the boreal moun- 

 tains are advertisingly colored, and yet no difference in 

 their habits is thereby caused ; evidently no one of the col- 

 oration schemes is a factor of survival value. 



The case of the white-tail deer is interesting when it is 

 compared with the fallow deer of Europe and the axis of 

 India. In its winter coat, unless when snow is on the 

 ground, the coloration is not revealing — although its col- 

 oration is hardly concealing in the sense that is true of the 

 blacktail and the southern form of the mountain-sheep. 

 But in spring and summer the bright-reddish coat is of a 

 very revealing quality against the bright green of its home; 

 and this at the very time that the breeding or nursing does 

 and velvet-horned bucks are most in need of protection. 

 Nevertheless this advertising quality of the coloration is of 

 no detriment, because the animal is such a finished skulker, 

 and lives in such dense cover that in summer it need fear 

 only foes which hunt it by scent. The flaunting flag is very 

 conspicuous; and the white belly, although to a less degree. 



