APPENDIX E 



PROTECTIVE COLORATION 



MR. DUGMORE has made a wonderful series of photographs of African 

 big game. Mr. Kearton has made a series of moving pictures of various 

 big animals which were taken alive by Buffalo Jones and his two cow- 

 boys, Loveless and Meany, on his recent trip to East Africa; a trip on 

 which they were accompanied by a former member of my regiment, Guy 

 Scull. All three men are old-time Westerners and plainsmen, skilled in 

 handling both horse and rope. They took their big, powerful, thoroughly 

 trained cow horses with them, and roped and captured a lioness, a rhi- 

 noceros, a giraffe, and other animals. I regard these feats of my three 

 fellow-countrymen as surpassing any feats which can possibly be per- 

 formed by men who hunt with the rifle. 



For the natural history of African big game, probably the three most 

 valuable books certainly the most valuable modern books are Selous's 

 "African Nature Notes," Schilling's "Flashlight and Rifle," and Millais's 

 " Breath from the Veldt." The photographer plays an exceedingly valuable 

 part in nature study, but our appreciation of the great value of this part 

 must never lead us into forgetting that as a rule even the best photograph 

 renders its highest service when treated as material for the best picture, 

 instead of as a substitute for the best picture; and that the picture it- 

 self, important though it is, comes entirely secondary to the text in any 

 book worthy of serious consideration either from the stand-point of science 

 or the stand-point of literature. Of course this does not mean any failure 

 to appreciate the absolute importance of photographs of Mr. Dugmore's 

 capital photographs, for instance; what I desire is merely that we keep 

 in mind, when books are treated seriously, the relative values of the pho- 

 tograph, the picture, and the text. The text again, to be of the highest 

 worth, must be good both in form and in substance; that is, the writer 

 who tells us of the habits of big game must be a man of ample personal 

 experience, of trained mind, of keen powers of observation, and, in addi- 

 tion, a man possessing the ability to portray vividly, clearly, and with 

 interest what he has seen. 



Experience in the field is of great value in helping to test various bio- 

 logical theories. One of the theories which has had a very great vogue 

 of recent years is that of the protective coloration of animals. It has 

 been worked out with a special elaborateness in Mr. Thayer's book on 

 "Concealing Coloration in the Animal Kingdom." I do not question 

 the fact that there are in all probability multitudes of cases in which 

 the coloration of an animal is of protective value in concealing it from 

 its prey or its foes. But the theory is certainly pushed to preposterous 



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