APPENDICES 413 



in the case of the Anatidce (ducks and geese), to the males 

 while undergoing "eclipse" and temporarily flightless. 



8. Also of certain creatures of nocturnal habits which, by 

 day, are naturally somnolent and secretive and some of which 

 certainly select environment that harmonises with their own 

 individual coloration immobility, nevertheless, remaining their 

 main safeguard and protection (as is also the case with those 

 mentioned in No. 7 above). 



Should the logic of these axioms be accepted and I 

 challenge their contradiction it follows, I submit, that what- 

 ever degree of protection be afforded by colour alone (if any) 

 is so slight as to be all but absolutely negligible. 



Colour. 



In addition to the axioms, far more precise definitions are 

 required of what is meant by the terms " colour " and " pro- 

 tection." Such definitions lie quite beyond my powers to 

 formulate. The dictionary describes colour as being "not a 

 material existence but a sensation" and with that I agree. 

 Thereafter, however, the technical diagnosis dives deep into 

 " waves of light," into " ether- waves " in recurring billions, and 

 similar terrifying formulae that may be as true as they are 

 obscure. For our practical purpose those terrors are irrelevant. 

 The least scientific can differentiate colour into two distinct 

 categories. There is the crude type that offends the eye when 

 some barn-door is overplastered with posters VOTE FOR 

 SMITH in capitals half-a-yard high and emblazoned in red 

 and blue, orange or green. That must be the "colour" of 

 colour-protectionists, or of those who visualise wild Nature as 

 though it consisted of stuffed effigies in glass cases? 



Secondly, we have Nature's colours, subtle and elusive, 

 changing with each changing phase of light and shade, of 

 passing cloud or transient sunshine, and varying with the 

 varying angles of impact ; subject, in short, to every passing 

 atmospheric effect. Nature's colours never assume a fixed and 

 material quality ; but are a reflex, relative and conditional. 



Protection. 



Here again there is a dangerous looseness of expression 

 that is quite incompatible with scientific accuracy. Against 



