APPENDIX E 507 



little creatures that trust to their eyes at all must have their vision readily 

 attracted by the skunk's bold coloration; and the skunk's method of 

 hunting is incompatible with deriving benefit from its coloration. Besides, 

 it usually hunts at night, and at night the white "sky-pattern" is not a 

 sky-pattern at all, but is exceedingly conspicuous, serving as an adver- 

 tisement. 



The big black and white Colobus monkey has been adduced as 

 an instance of the "concealing" quality of bold and conspicuous colora- 

 tion patterns. Of course, as I have said before, there is no conceivable 

 pattern which may not, under some wholly exceptional circumstances, 

 be of use from the protective stand-point; a soldier in a black frock 

 coat and top hat, with white duck trousers, might conceivably in the 

 course of some city fight get into a coal cellar with a white-washed 

 floor, and find that the "coloration pattern" of his preposterous uni- 

 form was protective; and really it would be no more misleading to 

 speak of such a soldier's dress as protective compared to khaki, than it 

 is to speak of the Colobus monkey's coloration as protective when 

 compared with the colorations of the duller colored monkeys of other 

 species that are found in the same forests. When hunting with the wild 

 'Ndorobo I often found it impossible to see the ordinary monkeys, which 

 they tried to point out to me, before the latter fled; but I rarely failed to 

 see the Colobus monkey when it was pointed out. In the tops of the 

 giant trees, any monkey that stood motionless was to my eyes difficult 

 to observe, but nine times out of ten it was the dull colored monkey, 

 and not the black and white Colobus, which was most difficult to observe. 

 I questioned the 'Ndorobos as to which they found hardest to see and, 

 rather to my amusement, at first they could not understand my question, 

 simply because they could not understand failing to make out either; but 

 when they did understand, they always responded that the black and 

 white Colobus was the monkey easiest to see and easiest to kill. These 

 monkeys stretch nearly across Africa, from a form at one extremity of the 

 range which is almost entirely black, to a form at the other extremity 

 of the range which is mainly or most conspicuously white. Of course it 

 is quite impossible that both forms can be protectively colored; and as 

 a matter of fact neither is. 



I am not speaking of the general theory of protective coloration. I 

 am speaking of certain phases thereof as to which I have made obser- 

 vations at first-hand. I have studied the facts as regards big game and 



