APPENDIX E 567 



breeding cock tanager are not colored in the most conspicuous manner to 

 attract attention, if they are not so colored as to make it impossible for 

 them to be more conspicuous, then it is absolutely hopeless for man or 

 Nature or any power above or under the earth to devise any scheme 

 of coloration whatsoever which shall not be concealing or protective; 

 and in such case Mr. Thayer's whole argument is a mere play upon 

 words. In sufficiently thick cover, whether of trees or grass, any small 

 animal of any color or shape may, if motionless, escape observation; but 

 the coloration patterns of the breeding bobolink and breeding tanager 

 males, so far from being concealing or protective, are in the highest degree 

 advertising; and the same is true of multitudes of birds, of the red-winged 

 blackbird, of the yellow-headed grackle, of the wood-duck, of the spruce 

 grouse, of birds which could be mentioned off-hand by the hundred, and 

 probably, after a little study, by the thousand. As regards many of these 

 birds, the coloration can never be protective or concealing; as regards 

 others, it may under certain rare combinations of conditions, like those 

 set forth in some of Mr. Thayer's ingenious but misleading colored 

 pictures* serve, for concealment or protection, but in an infinitely larger 

 number of cases it serves simply to advertise and attract attention to the 

 wearers. As regards these cases, and countless others, Mr. Thayer's 

 theories seem to me without substantial foundation in fact, and other 

 influences than those he mentions must be responsible for the color- 

 ation. It may be that his theories really do not apply to a very large 

 number of animals which are colored white, or are pale in tint, beneath. 

 For instance, in the cases of creatures like those snakes and mice where 

 the white or pale tint beneath can never be seen by either their foes or 

 their prey this "counter-shading" may be due to some cause wholly 

 different from anything concerned with protection or concealment. 



There are other problems of coloration for which Mr. Thayer pro- 

 fesses to give an explanation where this explanation breaks down for a 

 different reason. The cougar's coloration, for instance, is certainly in a 

 high degree concealing and protective, or at any rate it is such that it 

 does not interfere with the animal's protecting itself by concealment, for 

 the cougar is one of the most elusive of creatures, one of the most difficult 

 to see, either by the hunter who follows it or by the animal on which it 

 preys. But the cougar is found in every kind of country in northern 

 pine woods, in thick tropical forests, on barren plains, and among rocky 

 mountains. Mr. Thayer in his introduction states that "one may read 

 on an animal's coat the main facts of his habits and habitat, without 

 ever seeing him in his home." It would be interesting to know how he 

 would apply this statement to the cougar, and, if he knew nothing about 

 the animal, tell from its coat which specimen lived in a Wisconsin pine 

 forest, which among stunted cedars in the Rocky Mountains, which on 

 the snow-line of the Andes, which in the forest of the Amazon, and which 

 on the plains of Patagonia. With which habitat is the cougar's coat 



* Some of the pictures are excellent, and undoubtedly put the facts truthfully and 

 clearly; others portray as normal conditions which are wholly abnormal and exceptional, 

 and are therefore completely misleading. 



