28 MOSTLY MAMMALS 



A survey of a museum or a menagerie will likewise 

 show that spots and stripes are by no means equally 

 prevalent in all groups of mammals. In the apes, monkeys, 

 marmosets, and lemurs, for instance, they never occur ; and 

 when these animals are diversely coloured, the coloration 

 takes the form of patches symmetrically disposed on the 

 two sides of the body, but otherwise not following any 

 very clearly defined mode of arrangement. Then, again, 

 in the hoofed mammals, or ungulates, many species are 

 more or less uniformly coloured, although the zebras are 

 notable instances of transversely striped animals, while the 

 giraffe is an equally notable instance of the blotched type 

 of coloration. Among the even-toed (Artiodactyle) sub- 

 division of this order it may be also noticed that while in 

 the more specialised forms, such as wild cattle and sheep, 

 the coloration is more or less uniform, many of the 

 antelopes show white transverse stripes on a dark ground. 

 Dark transverse stripes are, however, known only in the 

 case of the little zebra-antelope (Cephalophus doriae) of 

 Western Africa, and the gnus ; while, although a lateral 

 dark flank-stripe is present in some antelopes, and in the 

 gazelles, none of these animals have the whole body marked 

 by longitudinal dark stripes. In the case of the deer it 

 has been mentioned in the preceding article that certain 

 species, like the fallow-deer and the Indian spotted deer, 

 are marked with longitudinal rows of white spots at all 

 ages ; while in the case of other species it will be found 

 that the young are similarly marked, whereas the adults 

 are uniformly coloured. A similar state of things occurs 

 among wild pigs, and also in the tapirs, from which we 

 are naturally led to infer that in this group of mammals, 

 at least, a spotted or striped type of coloration is the 

 original or generalised condition, while a uniformly coloured 



