rROTECTIVE COLORATION 5i:3 



been occasions when I have seen antelopes (juicker than I have 

 seen the zebra witli which they happened to be associatetl. More 

 often the light has been such that I have seen the zebra first. 

 Where I was, in Africa, the zebra herds were on the same gronnd, 

 and often associated, with eland, oryx, wildebeest, topi, hartebeest, 

 Grant's <;azelle, and Thomson's gazelle. Of all these animals, the 

 wildebeest, because of its dark coloration, was the most conspicuous 

 and most readily seen. The topi also usually looked very dark. 

 Both of these animals were ordinarily made out at longer distances 

 than the others. The gazelles, partly from their small size and 

 partly from their sandy coloration, were, I should say, usually a 

 little harder to make out than the others. The remaining animals 

 were consj)icuous or not, largely as the light happened to strike 

 them. Ordinarily, if zebras were mixed with elands or oryx, I saw 

 the zebras before seeing the eland and oryx, although I ought to 

 add that my black companions on these occasions usually made out 

 both sets of animals at the same time. But in mixed herds of 

 hartebeests and zebras I have sometimes seen the hartebeests first, 

 and sometimes the zebras. - 



The truth is that this plains game never seeks to escape observa- 

 tion at all, and that the coloration patterns of the various animals 

 arc not concealing, and are of practically no use whatever in 

 l)rotecting the animals from their foes. The beasts above 

 enumerated are coloured in widely different fashions. If anv one 

 of them was really obliteratively coloured, it would mean that 

 some or all of the others were not so coloured. But, as a matter 

 of fact, they are none of them instances of concealing coloration ; 

 none of the beasts seek to escape observation, or trust for safety to 

 eluding the sight of their foes. When they lie down they almost 

 always lie down in very open ground, where they are readily seen, 

 and where they can hope to see their foes. When topi, roan 

 antelope, hartebeest, and so foith, are standing head-on, the under 

 parts look darker instead of lighter than the upper parts, so that 

 in this connnon position there is no " counter-shading." The 

 roan and oryx have nearly uniform coloured coats which often do 

 harmonize with their surroundings ; but their bold face-markings 

 are conspicuous.- None of these big or medium-sized plains 



' Air. Thayer tries to show that the cross stripes on the legs of zebras are of 

 protective value. He has fort^otten that in the tj'pical Burchell's zebra the legs are 

 white ; whether they are striped or not is evidently of no consequence from the 

 protective standpoint. Tiiere is even less basis for ilr. Thayer's theory that 

 the strijiings on the legs of elands and one or two other antelopes have any, even 

 the slightest, protective value. 



- A curious instance of the lengths to which some protective-coloration theorists 

 go is afforded by the fact that they actually treat these bold markings as oblitcrative 

 or concealing. In actual fact the reverse is true ; these face-markings are much more 

 apt to advertise the animal's presence. 



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