REPTILIAN LIVERIES. 151 



similarly protected, the snakes would starve. 

 As a matter of fact, in the first place, this 

 particular form of coloration, with both hunter 

 and hunted, is not absolutely perfect. In the 

 second, lizards have enemies other than snakes, 

 and snakes have prey other than lizards. The 

 protective coloration affords both a measure of 

 protection sufficiently great to ensure the sur- 

 vival of the device. Many times in the life of 

 an individual death must have been escaped 

 solely on account of this coloration; and so 

 with the snakes, conspicuously where their 

 chances of approaching prey unawares would be 

 infinitely small. The khaki uniform of our 

 soldiers does not prevent many from falling 

 victims to the more sharp-sighted of the enemy ; 

 but clad in red the mortality would be many 

 times as great. 



Protective "resemblance colours" are of two 

 kinds among the Reptiles those which are rela- 

 tively permanent and fixed, and those which are 

 variable and fleeting, though no sharp line can be 

 drawn between the two, inasmuch as, by reason 

 of the contractile powers of the chromatophores 

 under the stimulus of changes in the environ- 

 ment, even relatively permanent types of colora- 

 tion may change. 



One of the best of all examples of permanent 

 protective coloration among the Eeptiles is 

 probably that of the Fimbriated Gecko ( Uroplatcs 

 fimbriatus) of Madagascar (see frontispiece). 



The general colour of the body may be de- 

 scribed as that of a piece of bark, blotched irre- 

 gularly with patches of lichen-colour. Judging 



