324 PROTECTIVE COLOURING OF ANIMALS. 



of protective colouring. The colour of an elephant's 

 skin, for instance, harmonizes so wonderfully with 

 it, that though to the uninitiated the fact might 

 appear almost incredible, those immense quadrupeds 

 are often entirely invisible, even to an experienced 

 eye, when standing motionless among the bush, close 

 to the observer. This motionless attitude is a habit 

 peculiar to nearly all game animals whose haunts are 

 among trees; when listening to the approach of a 

 suspected enemy, or an intruder upon their wild 

 domains. 



Then again, there is another, the " striped" form of 

 animal colouring; this we find strongly marked in 

 the Bengal tiger, the striped hyaena, the zebra, and 

 the giraffe. Seen in a gallery of natural history, the 

 skins of these animals would appear to be of so "loud" 

 a pattern, that one would naturally suppose they would 

 be instantly seen, at any reasonable distance. But in 

 reality it is not so instances have been known of 

 travellers surrounded by herds of the two latter species 

 of these creatures, who still thought themselves alone, 

 amidst the silent desolation of the wilderness; and it 

 was not until they moved that the deception became 

 apparent, as the startled game bounded off and vanished 

 into the bush. * The striped skins of these animals, 

 so long as they remain perfectly motionless, appear 

 in their natural haunts to have exactly the effect of 

 rays of light cast by the sun through the intertwin- 

 ing twigs and branches of the surrounding covert. 

 Further details with respect to these and other similar 

 matters, which we trust may prove both interesting 



* See for example an incident recorded by Professor Henry Drummond 

 in his Tropical Africa, 1888, p. 167. 



