JULY <-s, 1955] 
NATURE 511 

However, the whole purport of Mr. Roosevelt’s 
expedition, which for the most part has received 
unqualified approval on the part of serious-minded 
naturalists, was to enrich science with necessary 
specimens of beasts and birds for American and 
British museums, and above all to study the life 
habits of all interesting creatures in East Africa. 
There was no indiscriminate slaughter and good 
use was made of everything killed. 
All persons who are worth anything in intel- 
lectual valuation have their special tic, some detail 
or some subject about which they worry unneces- 
sarily, and in regard to which they would 
unhesitatingly. send to the stake all who differed 
from them. The subject over which Mr. Roose- 
velt frets—I think unduly—is the coloration of 
mammals—perhaps also that of birds, reptiles, 
insects. He is angered by the extremes to which 

Roosevelt Sable: adult male. 
the theory of protective or assimilative coloration 
has been carried by some writers who have 
probably wrenched facts to suit far-fetched 
conclusions; and seemingly he would go to the 
opposite pole and, apart from the flagrant cases 
which no one denies—of bold advertisement 
coloration—would almost refuse to admit that 
there is any purpose in coloration at all. 
Those who have seen much of beasts, birds, and 
insects in the tropics or in the wild regions of 
the temperate zone still adhere to the general 
theory that the coloration of living things has 
been gradually dev eloped to serve a purpose useful 
in the main for the preservation and prosperity 
of the species. Yet the direction of this mental 
reflex on corporeal matter by no means seems all- 
wise from the point of view of the human critic. 
It does not—as Mr. Roosevelt points out—always 
NO. 2384, VOL. 95| 



From Shimba Hills, British East Africa. 

lead to the betterment of 
being of the individual. 
bonum of daily fare 
the species or the well- 
Just as the summum 
on British steamers used to 
be governed by the steward’s ideal of what he 
liked best in his humble home at Liverpool or 
Southampton, so the markings and outward aspect 
of this and that species of mammal, bird, and 
insect in some cases evince nothing of “divine” 
foreknowledge in the pattern, but seem rather to 
be the expression of some low, and_ possibly 
stupid, “intelligence ” : an ideal formed in the con- 
tinuous mind of the species which passes on from 
individual to individual. Yet in most cases this 
ideal in colour and markings has unquestionably 
served a purpose, if a base one. 
Wild creatures are far less conspicuous—unless 
they desire to advertise themselves—in their 
natural habitat than are the domestic animals of 

From ‘‘ Life-Histories of African Game Animals.” 
man’s creation and protection. I remember once 
on the borders of Ovampoland, when I was com- 
paratively new to Tropical Africa, gazing from a 
hillock over a vast swampy plain to see if there 
was any big game to be shot. My eye at once 
noted the great herds of native cattle—red, brown, 
black, black and white—distinguishable from their 
surroundings with the utmost ease. I decided 
there was no game in sight, but my native guides 
pointed excitedly in another direction. At first I 
could detach nothing from the shrubs, the ant- 
hills, the sedges, and the thorns, until at length, 
by the mere fact that they moved, I made out "the 
forms of buffaloes and antelopes. The creatures 
the mind action of which was subordinated to 
ours, and which cared nothing for concealment, 
were at once visible to the eye, detached from 
their surroundings, and there, as elsewhere, an 
