MY SOMALI BOOK 233 



colours are more noticeable than others, an animal 

 with a dark or very light coat being more conspicuous 

 both on a starlight or moderately dark night, and in 

 the moonlight, than one of intermediate shades. 



I can state from personal experience that a leopard 

 at night under most conditions is far more difficult 

 to see than a white goat or a dark-brown sambar, and 

 Colonel Burton tells us that a tiger's striped form blends 

 remarkably with moonlight or dusk. And by daylight 

 no one can realise without personal experience how 

 difficult these animals are to see under frequently 

 occurring conditions in their usual surroundings. The 

 same may be said of the lion. 



When we turn to the smaller animals and birds, to 

 say nothing of insects, we find instances innumerable 

 of undoubted protective colouration in various forms ; 

 this for the simple reason that the smaller creatures 

 have a great number of foes, a large proportion of which 

 have not found it necessary or possible to take to 

 night-walking for a living. This being so it were the 

 height of rashness to deny the existence of protective 

 colouration at all among the larger mammals, which 

 is practically what we are called upon to do. 



Mr. Selous quotes the buffalo as a conspicuously 

 coloured animal that has suffered greatly from the 

 depredations of lions in South Africa. But he remarks 

 elsewhere upon the fact that in spite of the favourable 

 conditions lions never seem to have increased up to the 

 limit of their food supply, or to such an extent as to 

 reduce the immbers of buffaloes. May not this fact 

 supply the explanation, that since to the buffaloes, 

 existing in great numbers, there was never any danger 



