COLORATION OF GAME ANIMALS. 59 



between them. By the way, I suppose that lion have been written about more 

 than any other wild animal, and yet the subject appears far from being exhausted. 

 The point in question is. How well can lion and other game really see in 

 the dark? One hears that cats can see in the dark. I take it, though, that no 

 creature can see in absolute and complete darkness. There must be some streak 

 of light, however faint, before any one object can appear different to any other. 

 If everything is of uniform shadow and blackness there can be no sight. Animals 

 that live entirely in perfect darkness, as in the mammoth caves and on the floor 

 of the deepest part of the ocean, are blind. Thus, with lion and cats there must 

 be some faint light, reflected from stars or moon, to enable them to really see. 

 It is only in their power of being able to see slightly by the faintest glimmer of 

 light that they differ from us. On a dark night they probably can see but little ; 

 it is their wonderful sense of smell and touch which enables them to proceed with 

 a minimum of light. In the bright moonlight, however, they can probably see 

 almost as well as can we in the day. 



Other game also must be able to see well in the dark, since thev almost 

 invariably graze at night. They are probably little, if anything, inferior to the lion 

 in this respect. In spite of the wild stampedes which occur during the night 1 have 

 never heard of an animal coming to grief by falling over a precipice or running 

 full tilt against a rock or a tree. It would appear, then, that they are perfectly 

 at home in the dark, in spite of being provided with no appliances like the lion's 

 whiskers, or those of a cat. 



There is another point which bears on the theory of coloration, and that is to 

 what extent animals are able to distinguish colours apart. They certainly notice 

 quickly such colours as white or red, but I am not so certain that they see much 

 difference between the remaining colours, excepting, perhaps, vivid green. The 

 sense of colour is quite a civilised and cultivated sense, in which the ordinary 

 savage is very deficient. In the dozen or so of African languages of which I 

 have had a smattering at different times I have been greatly struck by the want 

 of names for colours. It is only the most civilised of races whose languages 

 make any attempt to describe different colours. Tribes owning a large amount 

 of stock often have a great variety of words describing the colours or markings 

 of cattle ; but excepting these, the remainder, comprising the great bulk of African 

 raw natives, have practically no words for colours whatever. The general rule is 

 that there are words for "white " (which usually also means "light" or "bright"), 

 and "black" and "red." Occasionally one hears the term "like grass," which 

 means " green." Beyond this they do not go. 



