APPENDIX E 509 



applies and what limitations there are to it. At present all that is abso- 

 lutely certain is that it does not apply anywhere near as extensively as 

 Mr. Thayer alleges, and that he is so completely mistaken as to some of 

 his facts as to make it necessary carefully to reconsider most of the others. 

 I have shown that as regards most kinds of big game which inhabit open 

 places and do not seek to escape observation but trust to their own 

 wariness for protection, his theories do not apply at all. They cer- 

 tainly do not apply at all to various other mammals. Many of his 

 sweeping assertions are certainly not always true, and may not be true 

 in even a very small number of cases. Thus, in his introductory, Mr. 

 Thayer says of birds that the so-called "nuptial colors, etc., are con- 

 fined to situations where the same colors are to be found in the wearer's 

 background, either at certain periods of his life or all the time," and 

 that apparently not one of these colors "exists anywhere in the world 

 where there is not every reason to believe it the very best conceivable 

 device for the concealment of its wearer, either throughout the main 

 part of this wearer's life or under certain peculiarly important cir- 

 cumstances." It is really difficult to argue about a statement so flatly 

 contradicted by ordinary experience. Taking at random two of the 

 common birds around our own homes, it is only necessary to consider 

 the bobolink and the scarlet tanager. The males of these two birds in 

 the breeding season put on liveries which are not only not the "very best 

 conceivable" but, on the contrary, are the very worst conceivable devices 

 for the concealment of the wearers. If the breeding cock bobolink and 

 breeding cock tanager are not colored in the most conspicuous manner to 

 attract attention, if they are not so colored as to make it impossible for 

 them to be more conspicuous, then it is absolutely hopeless for man or 

 Nature or any power above or under the earth to devise any scheme 

 of coloration whatsoever which shall not be concealing or protective; 

 and in such case Mr. Thayer's whole argument is a mere play upon 

 words. In sufficiently thick cover, whether of trees or grass, any small 

 animal of any color or shape may, if motionless, escape observation; but 

 the coloration patterns of the breeding bobolink and breeding tanager 

 males, so far from being concealing or protective, are in the highest degree 

 advertising; and the same is true of multitudes of birds, of the red-winged 

 blackbird, of the yellow-headed grackle, of the wood-duck, of the spruce 

 grouse, of birds which could be mentioned offhand by the hundred, and 

 probably, after a little study, by the thousand. As regards many of these 





