APPENDIX E 559 



I think that it simply has no effect whatsoever. The giraffe never trusts 

 to escaping observation; its sole thought is itself to observe any possible 

 foe. At a distance of a few hundred yards the color pattern becomes 

 indistinct to the eye, and the animal appears of a nearly uniform tint, 

 so that any benefit given by the color pattern must be comparatively 

 close at hand. On the very rare occasions when beasts of prey that is, 

 lions do attack giraffes, it is usually at night, when the coloration is of 

 no consequence; but even by daylight I should really doubt whether any 

 giraffe has been saved from an attack by lions owing to its coloration 

 allowing it to escape observation. It is so big, and so queerly shaped, 

 that any trained eyes detect it at once, if within a reasonable distance; 

 it only escapes observation when so far off that its coloration does not 

 count one way or the other. There is no animal which will not at times 

 seem invisible to the untrained eyes of the average white hunter, and 

 any beast of any shape or any color standing or lying motionless, under 

 exceptional circumstances, may now and then escape observation. The 

 elephant is a much more truly sylvan beast than the giraffe, and it is a 

 one-colored beast, its coloration pattern being precisely that which Mr. 

 Thayer points out as being most visible. But I have spent over a minute 

 in trying to see an elephant not fifty yards off, in thick forest, my black 

 companion vainly trying to show it to me; I have had just the same 

 experience with the similarly colored rhinoceros and buffalo when stand- 

 ing in the same scanty bush that is affected by giraffes, and with the 

 rhinoceros also in open plains where there are ant-hills. It happens that I 

 have never had such an experience with a giraffe. Doubtless such ex- 

 periences do occur with giraffes, but no more frequently than with ele- 

 phant, rhinoceros, and buffalo; and in my own experience I found that I 

 usually made out giraffes at considerably larger distances than I made 

 out rhinos. The buffalo does sometimes try to conceal itself, and, Mr. 

 Thayer to the contrary notwithstanding, it is then much more difficult to 

 make out than a giraffe, because it is much smaller and less oddly shaped. 

 The buffalo, by the way, really might be benefited by protective color- 

 ation, if it possessed it, as it habitually lives in cover and is often preyed 

 on by the lion; whereas the giraffe is not protected at all by its colora- 

 tion, and is rarely attacked by lions. 



Elephants and rhinoceroses occasionally stand motionless, waiting 

 to see if they can place a foe, and at such times it is possible they are 

 consciously seeking to evade observation. But the giraffe never under 

 any circumstances tries to escape observation, and I doubt if, practically 

 speaking, it ever succeeds so far as wild men or wild beasts that use their 

 eyes at all are concerned. It stands motionless looking at the hunter, 

 but it never tries to hide from him. It is one of the most conspicuous 

 animals in Nature. Native hunters of the true hunting tribes pick it up 

 invariably at an astonishing distance, and, near by, it never escapes their 

 eyes; its coloration is of not the slightest use to it from the stand-point of 

 concealment. Of course, white men, even though good ordinary hunters, 

 and black men of the non-hunting tribes, often fail to see it, just as they 



