COLOUR. 



read in Galton's South Africa, that " no more con- 

 spicuous animal can well be conceived, according to 

 common ideas, than a zebra ; but on a bright starlight 

 night the breathing of one may be heard close by you, 

 and yet you will be positively unable to see the animal. 

 If the black stripes were more numerous, he would be 

 seen as a black mass ; if the white, as a white one ; but 

 their proportion is such as exactly to match the pale 



noiobij] r.M. 11. II. 



Fig. 398. — Light dun foal by Norwegian pony (Fig. 400), out of a grey Arab niare. 

 I 



tint which arid ground possesses when seen by moon- 

 light." Writing about the white under-sides of animals 

 as protective coloration, Mr. Abbott H. Thayer (Nature, 

 24 April, 1902) draws attention to the very in- 

 teresting fact that, " if an object be coloured so that its 

 tones constitute a gradation of shading and of colouring 

 counter to the gradation of shading and colouring which 

 light thrown upon it would produce, such object will 

 appear perfectly flat, retaining its length and breadth, 



