ai COSMIC FHILOSOPET, [ft, n. 



bear is white, as the California bear is grey and the Hindustan 

 bear black, because with a coat thus coloured it can best 

 escape notice and secure its prey. The polar hare has a per- 

 manent coat of white ; but the alpine hare, the arctic fox, ane 

 the ermine, which do not live amid perpetual snow, have 

 coats that are white in the winter only. Arctic owls, falcons^ 

 and buntings are coloured snowy white ; and the ptarmigan 

 is white in winter, while " its summer plumage so exactly 

 harmonizes with the lichen-covered stones among which it 

 delights to sit, that a person may walk through a flock of 

 them without seeing a single birds" In the sandy deserts of 

 Northern Africa, all birds, without exception, all snakes and 

 lizards, and all the smaller mammals, are of a uniform sandy 

 colour. The camel is tinted like the desert in which he 

 lives, and the same is true of the antelope and the Australian 

 kangaroo. The tawny lion, says Mr. Wallace, " is a typical 

 example of this, and must be almost invisible when crouched 

 upon the sand or among desert rocks and stones." His 

 brother, the tiger, "is a jungle animal, and hides himself 

 among tufts of grass or of bamboos, and in these positions 

 the vertical stripes with which his body is adorned must so 

 assimilate with the vertical stems of the bamboo, as to assist 

 greatly in concealing him from his approaching prey. How 

 remarkable it is that besides the lion and tiger, almost all 

 the other large cats are arboreal in their habits, and almost 

 all have ocellated or spotted skins, which must certainly 

 tend to blend them with the background of foliage; while 

 the one exception, the puma, has an ashy brown uniform 

 fur^ and has the habit of clinging so closely to a limb of a 

 tree, while waiting for his prey to pass beneath, as to be 

 hardly distinguishable from the bark."^ Such nocturnal 

 animals as owls, goat-s ackers, mice, bats, and moles are 

 dusky-coloured. In tropical forests, where the trees are laden 

 with green foliage all the year round, we find brilliant greea 



1 "Wallace, Natural Selection, pp. 49, 53. 



