rAuk 

 14g Correspondence. uan. 



surrounds them from sunset till dark, and from dawn until soon after 

 sunrise They commonly feed in immense open lagoons, wading, in vast 

 phalanxes, while the entire real sky above them and its reflected duplicate 

 below them constitute either one vast hollow sphere of gold, rose, and 

 salmon, or at least glow, on one side or the other, with these tones. Their 

 whole plumage is a most exquisite duplicate of these scenes. Whenever 

 any student of this subject comes to believe that any sky matching what- 

 ever like for instance, a deer's, is adaptation and not accident, he will 

 not continue to be astonished that this flamingo, having at his feeding 

 time so nearly only sunrise colors to match, wears, as he does, a wonderful 

 imitation of them. The public will soon be astonished when I show them 

 a dawn picture made out of the entire skin of one of these birds simply 

 'mosaicked' into the sky of a painting of one of their lagoons. I am now 

 making such a picture. I have already nearly finished a picture of a 

 Himalavan gorge made wholly of the skins of Monaul pheasants; and 

 another one of a New Hampshire snow scene similarly done with magpies. 

 Artists are positively amazed by both of them. 



Two other points I wish to cover in this letter. The first is based on 

 the obvious fact that the most critical moment an animal ever survives is 

 that one in which he barely escapes death. Imagine a crouching hare 

 stalked and at last sprung upon by a fox or lynx. If the hare bound away 

 in time the arc of the predator's leap inevitably brings his face down to the 

 very ground at the spot which the hare has just left, and from this view- 

 point, the hare's rump is well up against the back-ground patch-work of foliage 

 pierced mth sky-holes so absolutely counterfeited by his own white rump 

 and dusky flanks. (If most people refuse to take the trouble to put their 

 faces to the sod and see for themselves they must simply trust what 1 say.) 

 My other point is merely a clear reiteration of the little noticed fact that 

 matching the background does not always mean coalescing with what 

 chances at the moment to be behind the animal. It means matching the 

 potential back-ground; in other words, presenting such an appearance as 

 the beholder's eyes would naturally expect to see in such a situation. It 

 is especially important to understand this principle in such a case as that 

 of the flamingo. Under his circumstances to be a picture of dawn or sunset 

 whose rosv hues are the strongest characteristics of the place and the hour, 

 could not make him conspicuous to the minds of his sub-aquatic neighbors. 



It is simply his best gamble. 



A. H. Thayer. 



Monadnock, N. H., 

 Dec. 8, 1910. 



