562 APPENDIX E 



most dull-sighted beast to avoid seeing it. Of course I usually watched 

 the pools and rivers when there was daylight; but after nightfall the 

 zebra's stripes would be entirely invisible, so that their only effect at the 

 drinking-place must be in the daytime; and in the daytime there was 

 absolutely no effect, and the zebras that I saw could by no possibility 

 have escaped observation from a lion, for they made no effort whatever 

 thus to escape observation, but moved about continually, and, after drink- 

 ing, retired to the open ground. 



The zebra's coloration is certainly never of use to him in helping him 

 escape observation at a drinking-place. But neither is it of use to him 

 in escaping observation anywhere else. As I have said before, there are 

 of course circumstances under which any pattern or coloration will har- 

 monize with the environment. Once I came upon zebras standing in 

 partially burned grass, some of the yellow stalks still erect, and here the 

 zebras were undoubtedly less conspicuous than the red-coated hartebeests 

 with which they were associated; but as against the one or two occasions 

 where I have seen the zebra's coat make it less conspicuous than most 

 other animals, there have been scores where it has been more conspicu- 

 ous. I think it would be a safe estimate to say that for one occasion on 

 which the coloration of the zebra serves it for purposes of concealment 

 from any enemy, there are scores, or more likely hundreds, of occasions 

 when it reveals it to an enemy; while in the great majority of instances 

 it has no effect one way or the other. The different effects of light and 

 shade make different patterns of coloration more or less visible on different 

 occasions. There have been occasions when I have seen antelopes quicker 

 than I have seen the zebra with which they happened to be associated. 

 More often, the light has been such that I have seen the zebra first. Where 

 I was, in Africa, the zebra herds were on the same ground, and often 

 associated with, eland, oryx, wildebeest, topi, hartebeest, Grant's ga- 

 zelle, and Thomson's gazelle. Of all these animals, the wildebeest, be- 

 cause of its dark coloration, was the most conspicuous and most readily 

 seen. The topi also usually looked very dark. Both of these animals 

 were ordinarily made out at longer distances than the others. The ga- 

 zelles, partly from their small size and partly from their sandy coloration, 

 were, I should say, usually a little harder to make out than the others. 

 The remaining animals were conspicuous or not, largely as the light 

 happened to strike them. Ordinarily, if zebras were mixed with elands 

 or oryx I saw the zebras before seeing the eland and oryx, although I 

 ought to add that my black companions on these occasions usually made 

 out both sets of animals at the same time. But in mixed herds of harte- 

 beests and zebras, I have sometimes seen the hartebeests first and some- 

 times the zebras.* 



* Mr. Thayer tries to show that the cross stripes on the legs of zebras are of pro- 

 tective value; he has forgotten that in the typical Burchell's zebra the legs are white; 

 whether they are striped or not is evidently of no consequence from the protective stand- 

 point. There is even less basis for Mr. Thayer's theory that the stripings on the legs 

 of elands and one or two other antHop^s have any, even the slightest, protective value. 



