APPENDIX E 505 



markings are conspicuous.* None of these big or medium sized plains 

 animals, while healthy and unhurt, seeks to escape observation by hiding. 



This is the direct reverse of what occurs with many bush antelopes. 

 Undoubtedly many of the latter do seek to escape observation. I have 

 seen waterbucks stand perfectly still, and then steal cautiously off through 

 the brush; and I have seen duiker and steinbuck lie down and stretch their 

 heads out flat on the ground when they noticed a horseman approaching 

 from some distance. Yet even in these cases it is very hard to say whether 

 their coloration is really protective. The steinbuck, a very common 

 little antelope, is of a foxy red, which is decidedly conspicuous. The 

 duiker lives in the same localities, and seems to me to be more protectively 

 colored at any rate, if the coloration is protective for one it certainly 

 is not for the other. The bushbuck is a boldly colored beast, and I do 

 not believe for a moment that it ever owes its safety to protective colora- 

 tion. The reedbuck, which in manners corresponds to our white-tailed 

 deer, may very possibly at times be helped by its coloration, although 

 my own belief is that all these bush creatures owe their power of conceal- 

 ment primarily to their caution, noiselessness, and power to remain 

 motionless, rather than to any pattern of coloration. But all of these 

 animals undoubtedly spend much of their time in trying to elude 

 observation. 



On the open plains, however, nothing of the kind happens. The little 

 tommy gazelle, for instance, never strives to escape observation. It has 

 a habit of constantly jerking its tail in a way which immediately attracts 

 notice, even if it is not moving otherwise. When it lies down, its oblitera- 

 tive shading entirely disappears, because it has a very vivid black line 

 along its side, and when recumbent or indeed for the matter of that 

 when standing up this black line at once catches the eye. However, 

 when standing, it can be seen at once anyhow. The bigger Grant's 

 gazelle is, as far as the adult male is concerned, a little better off than the 

 tommy, because the bucks have not got the conspicuous black lateral 

 stripe; but this is possessed by both the young and the does who stand 

 in much more need of concealing coloration. But as I have already 

 so often said, neither concealment nor concealing coloration plays any 

 part whatever in protecting these animals from their foes. There is 



* 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 obliterative or 

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

 to advertise the animal's presence. 



