THE SECOND PROBLEM OF BIRD LIFE. 143 



instead, offers protection to the soldiers because it is not 

 easily distinguished from its surroundings. 



But how are we birds that cannot change our coats to 

 take advantage of such means of concealment ? Let us take 

 a broad view of the subject. If we were to fly far above 

 the earth, it would appear to us,' I fancy, very much like 

 those colored plates of hemispheres arid continents in our 

 geographies. So, indeed, it appears looking down from a 

 mountain top. All the country round is spread out before 

 us like a painted card. The sandy stretches shine white in 

 the sunlight; the less barren, but still infertile, spots show 

 buff or brown ; ploughed lands appear in squares of all 

 colors, from yellow to black, according to the soil; and 

 meadows, grain fields, gardens, and forests are each green 

 alter its own kind. If our view could be extended to in- 

 clude a whole hemisphere, we should still find it marked off 

 in fields not less vivid in color than these laid out by men, 

 but less regular in outline. We should see the deserts sparkle 

 with sand, the plains lying bare and buff with clay beds, the 

 river courses and watered countries spread out in green cham- 

 paigns, the mountain chains standing like rows of crystals 

 and striped like tourmalines from their green bases to their 

 white and icy summits. And the whole glowing picture 

 would shade away from the luxuriant and almost sombre 

 vegetation of the green tropics to the wind-cropped mosses 

 of the brown and barren north. 



What colors would best befit a bird of the tropics ? or a 

 bird of the deserts ? or a bird of the arctic north ? Greens 

 for one, dusty browns or tawny for the next, and brown or 

 white for the last. As a matter of fact we find this actually 

 true. The birds of the tropics wear the gayest of coats, and 

 have among them a large proportion of birds wholly or partly 



