348 DESERT SANDS 



red, green, or yellow. Desert animals, like intense South 

 Kensington, go in only for neutral tints. In proportion as 

 each individual approaches in hue to the sand about it will 

 it succeed in life in avoiding its enemies or in creeping 

 upon its prey, according to circumstances. In proportion 

 as it presents a strikingly vivid or distinct appearance 

 among the surrounding sand will it make itself a sure 

 mark for its watchful foes, if it happen to be an un- 

 protected skulker, or will it be seen beforehand and 

 avoided by its prey, if it happen to be a predatory hunting 

 or insect-eating beast. Hence on the sandy desert all 

 species alike are uniformly sand-coloured. Spotty lizards 

 bask on spotty sands, keeping a sharp look-out for spotty 

 butterflies and spotty beetles, only to be themselves spotted 

 and devoured in turn by equally spotty birds, or snakes, or 

 tortoises. All nature seems to have gone into half-mourn- 

 ing together, or, converted by a passing Puritan missionary, 

 to have clad itself incontinently in grey and fawn-colour. 



Even the larger beasts that haunt the desert take their 

 tone not a little from their sandy surroundings. You have 

 only to compare the desert-haunting lion with the other 

 great cats to see at once the reason for his peculiar uni- 

 form. The tigers and other tropical jungle-cats have their 

 coats arranged in vertical stripes of black and yellow, which, 

 though you would hardly believe it unless you saw them in 

 their native nullahs (good word 'nullah,' gives a convinc- 

 ing Indian tone to a narrative of adventure), harmonise 

 marvellously with the lights and shades of the bamboos 

 and cane-brakes through whose depths the tiger moves so 

 noiselessly. 



Looking into the gloom of a tangled jungle, it is almost 

 impossible to pick out the beast from the yellow stems and 

 dark shadows in which it hides, save by the baleful gleam 

 of those wicked eyes, catching the light for one second as 



