COLORATION OF GAME ANIMALS. 51 



Again, the giraffe, amongst trees and bushes in the very far distance, may be 

 difficult to see, but this is only natural. Put a hut or a locomotive or a motor-bus in 

 the far distance, and almost entirely screen it with trees and bushes, and it will not 

 be easy to recognise. A giraffe near, or even in the far distance, when not screened 

 from view, is a most conspicuous object to the practised eye. 



The men who write about these protective colours of game animals are men, as 

 a rule, born and bred in towns and in civilised countries in which there is scarcely 

 a square yard of land which does not bear some impress of man's handiwork. 

 Even in the parts of our country which we call wild there is some trace of the 

 human being at every step, the mark of the peat-digger's spade or the sportsman's 

 cartridge on the moor, the stumps of undergrowth severed by the woodman's bill- 

 hook or the gamekeeper's boot mark in the forest. 



I have often stood in some such locality and looked round me to see if there 

 were no traces of man, but there was always some sign of his presence — a match, a 

 chip of wood, a scar on a tree, a cattle track, or the like mark. No wonder, then, 

 when brought up in such surroundings, that at first the African bush seems strange to 

 one, and that things so new to the eye are difficult to pick up. 



The savage put down in London would have not the slightest chance of 

 noticing everything which appeared to his eye till he had got used to his 

 surroundings. He would see no difference between a Hammersmith and a Putney 

 bus, nor would he be able to recognise a public from a private vehicle, nor a coffee- 

 stall from a van. The greater part of the things which passed before his eyes would 

 entirely escape his observation. So is it at first in the bush. You think that you 

 see a lot, but really are seeing little, and observing scarcely anything closely. 



Game animals at first are very difficult to recognise in the bush, but as soon as 

 you get used to your surroundings they become easier of detection. They never 

 become really easy to see in the thick bush, because so little of them is, as a 

 rule, visible. 



However, this has little to do with protective imitation. 



The reasons why game animals are often difficult to locate are that one is 

 either looking for them in the far distance, where all objects are blurred by heat 

 haze, or one is searching for them in thick bush, grass, or forest. In the latter 

 places you have to pick up an animal by seeing only an ear, a horn, or a part of a 

 leg between the foliage. 



On the other hand, the animals enjoy the advantage of being able to hear or 

 scent your approach besides having a better chance of seeing you than you 

 have of seeing them. 



