474 Allen, Roosevelt on Concealing Coloration. |_Oct. 



thousand-fold more importance than that to which it is entitled." 

 This, we believe, must be the ultimate conclusion of intelligent 

 field observers of wide experience on serious examination of the 

 facts in the case. 



The main contention of Mr. Roosevelt's paper is that conceal- 

 ment in birds and mammals is due mainly to "cover and habits." 

 Birds of many species, living in all kinds of environment, and 

 embracing all the leading types of bird life as regards size, habits, 

 and habitats, and of mammals, from elephants, giraffes, zebras, 

 antelopes, lions, cougars, skunks, marmots, squirrels, field mice, 

 shrews, etc., are discussed at length with reference to Mr. Thayer's 

 points of view. A few excerpts will show the method of treatment 

 adopted by Mr. Roosevelt: "Now as to the insistance Mr. Thayer 

 puts on some of his propositions. When he says that 'the striking 

 patterns' and 'the utmost contrasts of color' on animals 'make 

 wholly for their obliteration,' really the only way of answering him 

 is by a negative. The red-headed woodpecker exactly fulfils Mr. 

 Thayer's description of an animal with such a pattern and contrast 

 of color. If in Mr. Thayer's eyes a red-headed woodpecker in its 

 normal surroundings is inconspicuous there is no more to be said 

 than we would say to a man who asserted that a large house 

 standing alone on the prairie and colored half black and half white, 

 with a bright red roof, was inconspicuous ... The red-headed 

 woodpecker is one of the most conspicuous of all animate objects. 

 Its habits are such that even a city-bred man must see this." 



"Again, take what Mr. Thayer says of countershading, and of 

 why a protectively colored animal escapes detection. Mr. Thayer 

 insists that the animal escapes observation, not because its colors 

 match its surroundings, or because it sits motionless like a stump, 

 or clod, or some such inanimate thing, but purely because of its 

 shading, which he says is rendered obliterative by the counter- 

 gradation of shades, so that the eye does not recognize it as a solid 

 object of any kind.' . . This spring, once or twice after heavy rain 

 I have seen meadow mice in unusually open spots where I could 

 examine them having in view this matter of concealing coloration. 

 When they move they are visible at once; when they are still they 

 always crouch nearly flat — their short legs render this necessary — 

 and there is then practically no effect of countershading; it is a 



