NATURAL SELECTION 



majority of animals are so coloured as best to 

 escape notice, and that animals which are not 

 protectively coloured are animals whose habits 

 of life are such as to enable them to dispense 

 with secrecy. The polar bear is white, as the 

 California bear is gray and the Hindustan bear 

 black, because with a coat thus coloured it can 

 best escape notice and secure its prey. The 

 polar hare has a permanent coat of white ; but 

 the alpine hare, the arctic fox, and the ermine, 

 which do not live amid perpetual snow, have 

 coats that are white in the winter only. Arctic 

 owls, falcons, and buntings are coloured snowy 

 white ; and the ptarmigan is white in winter, 

 while " its summer plumage so exactly harmo- 

 nizes with the lichen - covered stones among 

 which it delights to sit, that a person may walk 

 through a flock of them without seeing a single 

 bird." In the sandy deserts of Northern Af- 

 rica, all birds, without exception, all snakes and 

 lizards, and all the smaller mammals, are of a 

 uniform sandy colour. The camel is tinted like 

 the desert in which he lives, and the same is 

 true of the antelope and the Australian kanga- 

 roo. The tawny lion, says Mr. Wallace, " is a 

 typical example of this, and must be almost in- 

 visible when crouched upon the sand or among 

 desert rocks and stones." His brother, the 

 tiger, " is a jungle animal, and hides himself 

 among tufts of grass or of bamboos, and in these 

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