182 Barbour and Phillips, Concealing Coloration Again. [April 



West Indian area. The two species of Andean Flamingo — Phoeni- 

 coparrus andenus and P. jamcsi — as well as also Phoenicopterus 

 chilensis, would be even less likely to meet with enemies of this 

 sort. This leaves only the small African Flamingoes, Phoeniconaias 

 minor and Phoenicopterus roseus to be mentioned. Of course there 

 are no water snakes in the Old World capable of swallowing a 

 flamingo, and crocodiles would be dangerous over only a compara- 

 tively small part of the range of these birds. So that taking the 

 group of Flamingoes as a whole, and their geographic distribution 

 as a whole, we see that these two elements of danger would only 

 be likely to affect a couple of species, and that over only a small 

 part of their range. This is assuming that there are Flamingoes 

 which would not see the coming enemy first, which is very im- 

 probable indeed. The fact that Flamingoes, Spoonbills and Scar- 

 let Ibis lose the pink of their plumage almost at once with change 

 of food in captivity shows that this characteristic is probably not 

 one which has been fixed by organic evolution but is, as is probably 

 often the case, a purely physiologic result from their mode of life. 



This same method of analysis might be followed out for many of 

 the other examples which Mr. Thayer uses. It is somewhat 

 enlightening to match the Flamingo and the Roseate Spoonbill 

 drawn in Plate IX with actual skins of the species. One would 

 hardly believe it possible that they could have been drawn from 

 specimens. 



Mr. Thayer has devoted a number of pages (66-71) to the con- 

 sideration of the exquisite plumage of the Wood Duck, in which 

 he discovers a veritable picture-puzzle of water, forest-pools, 

 cow-lily flowers, grass, reflections, window effects due to speculum, 

 etc. In other words, the plumage is said to be " ruptive," " counter- 

 shaded," "secant-marked," etc. 



We must say that we admire the Wood Duck, we hope as much as 

 Mr. Thayer does. We have seen him wild from New Brunswick 

 to Florida, and have bred him in captivity in some numbers. Per- 

 haps our imagination is at fault, perhaps our artistic education has 

 been somewhat neglected; but we are content to look upon Aix 

 sponsa as a beautiful bird with a strongly developed and pleasingly 

 constructed dimorphism of plumage. 



Mr. Thayer has made this duck the subject of some beautiful 



