6o THE GAME OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA. 



Now, although a native undoubtedly sees that there is a difference between 

 other colours when placed side by side, his ideas about any other colours are blurred 

 and hazy. He certainly cannot distinguish between shades, nor can he remember 

 the shade of anything. If one asked him to pick out the second volume of a 

 book and showed him the first, he would probably go and bring you one of quite 

 a different colour. 



Now, I think that it is unlikely that game would have a greater discrimination in 

 colour than the native, and the chances are that it possesses considerably less. It 

 is probable, then, that to game all colours appear as either red or different shades 

 of white and black, or call them light and dark, and also, possibly, green. Now, 

 although the native lias more discrimination of colours than this, his description 

 of the colours he sees will probably describe fairly well what the game actually 

 sees. The native calls white, silver, grey, yellow, light brown, pale green, and 

 pale blue "white" or "bright." If pressed about the colour in question he might 

 say that it was " very white," meaning that it was very pale or white. 



Red, vermilion, magenta, scarlet, brown, and dark yellow he calls " red," and 

 violet, dark blue, dark mauve, very dark green, dark brown, and chocolate he calls 

 " black." Now, if game see colours something after this manner it will explain 

 largely why they are so bad at picking out a stationary object. It will also explain 

 how it is that they will often walk up without noticing to within a few yards of one 

 when one is perfectly still. 



You may imagine thai you are not dressed in perfect harmony with your 

 surroundings, but you may be dressed in just the same lightness or darkness of 

 colour as your surroundings, although of a different shade. 



There are many people who are colour blind, and the form this often takes is an 

 inability to distinguish light blue from pink. Now, if you had a shirt made in 

 stripes of light blue and pink of exactly the same depth of colour, to anybody else it 

 would appear startling, but the colour-blind person would take it to be of one uniform 

 colour. If, however, the blue was a darker blue than the pink was pink it would be 

 apparent even to him that the shirt was in stripes, but he would not know if they 

 were dark and light blue, dark and light pink, or light pink and dark blue, or dark 

 pink and light blue stripes. This e.xample may tend to explain how different colours 

 may appear to game. 



If this is so, protective coloration assumes quite a new aspect. For as long as 

 an animal was black or white, or of the same lightness or darkness as the object to 

 be imitated, the exact shade of colour would be immaterial. Then would many bush 

 animals, which appear to us poor examples of protective imitation, be really protective 



