NA TURE 



217 



THURSDAY, JULY 9, 190S. 



AFRICAN NATURE NOTES. 

 African Nature Notes and Reminiscences. By F. C. 

 Selous. With a foreword by President Roosevelt. 

 Pp. xxx+356; illustrated. ([.ondon : Macmillan 

 and Co., Ltd., iqoS.) Price los. net. 



MR. SELOL'S has been well advised to commit 

 to a book his recollections of natural history 

 in connection with the big- g-ame of .Africa. There 

 is still a branch of zoological science which may be 

 called bv the nearly di.scarded title of " natural his- 

 torv " instead of biology; and although the latter is 

 the more important type of research, biologists are 

 probablv the first to desire to couple with their know- 

 ledge of the bodv of the dead organism accurate in- 

 formation as to its life-habits; for this must evidently 

 furnish the necessary explanation ot peculiarity of 

 structure while being frequently an additional aid to 

 classification. 



Mr. Selous has long been celebrated as one of the 

 first among big-game hunters and collectors for a 

 period of something like thirty years. He, and a 

 few like him, have enormously increased our know- 

 ledge ot the world's larger inammalian fauna. Un- 

 fortunately he has few compeers in proportion to the 

 army of useless game-slaughterers who are devas- 

 tating the world and destroying what remains of its 

 notable birds and mammals. 



The national collection in the British Museum is 

 an eloquent testimony to the fact that many victims 

 of Mr. Selous's unerring rifle have not died in vain, 

 have not been killed uselessly. At the same time, his 

 pursuit of big and small game in South and East 

 Africa, Asia Minor, and in America has been accom- 

 panied by most careful note-taking as to the life- 

 habits of the creatures he pursued — pursued very often 

 not to kill, but to observe. 



In the book under review, the two preliminary 

 chapters call into question theories as to the protective 

 coloration of mammals and birds, and the value of 

 supposed recognition marks. President Roosevelt 

 joins with Mr. Selous in somewhat decrying the 

 cogency of theories in vogue. It would seem to the 

 reviewer that both writers were a little querulous in 

 their desire to differ from a number of established 

 authorities on zoology (most of them field naturalists 

 also). 



The coloration and marking of living creatures — 

 let us say for the moment beasts and birds — arises 

 from such a complication of causes that it can only 

 as yet be explained partially, and by a varietv of 

 reasons. One of these is that the greater magnificence 

 of appe.irance in the male serves to attract the notice 

 and compliance of the female. This has been con- 

 tested bv some writers, but it still remains a valid 

 theory. The most important explanation, however, 

 yet advanced for the colour or markings of the 

 majority of animals is that their appearance is thereby 

 adapted to their surroundings, and enables them 

 cither as pursuer or pursued to escape observation. 

 NO. 2019, VOL. 78I 



It would seem to the reviewer that in the main few- 

 persons who have studied wild life can refuse to be- 

 lieve in the existence and practical value of protective 

 or assimilative coloration. 



Who, for example, that has seen a bittern amongst 

 the reeds and tree stumps can refuse to believe that 

 for some purpose best known to itself the creature is 

 posing in such a w^ay that its marking, colouring and 

 attitude deceive the eye of everything that is not a 

 bittern ? 



Even the magnificent crimson and blue-green bee- 

 eaters- of tropical Africa have a way of perching on 

 bare bushes so that they exactly resemble large crim- 

 son flowers. The precise purpose in this deception 

 is no doubt to attract insects on which they pounce. 

 The reviewer has witnessed this deception repeatedly, 

 thinking at a little distance that he w-as gazing at a 

 magnificent example of an Erythrina shrub in full 

 flower until the flowers flew away. 



Mr. .Selous repudiates the idea that giraffes can 

 find any advantage in resembling tree trunks that 

 have been blasted by lightning, as they do invariably 

 when they are immobile and holding their necks very 

 erect. The reviewer can aver that in Eastern Equa- 

 torial and South-west .Africa he has been repeatedly de- 

 ceived (although his sight is good enough to be com- 

 pared with that of a negro) by this appearance of the 

 girafl'e sentries. They were old males or females, 

 whose colouring at the distance .seemed resolved into 

 black and white, and they appeared remarkably to 

 resemble the trunks of the acacia trees that have been 

 blasted by lightning and stripped by storms. 



Innumerable other cases of deception in coloration 

 on the part of large and small game could be cited. 



Mr. Selous asks what use it is, since the carnivora 

 almost invariably hunt by scent and at night. He 

 seems to forget that the most dangerous of all car- 

 nivores is man, predatory man, and that man has 

 co-existed with most modern types of birds and beasts 

 for hundreds of thousands of years, back to the end 

 of the Tertiary period at any rate, quite long enough 

 for giraffes, antelope, deer, and innumerable other 

 beasts (and birds) to have developed a special apti- 

 tude and cunning for evading his observation. For 

 man, since even before he was truly man, has in- 

 V'ariablv hunted bv sight, and not by scent. 



It is scarcelv necessary to state that Mr. Selous's 

 notes on the life-history of the lion, the spotted hyena, 

 the Cape buffalo, and the rhinoceros are interesting, 

 original, and obviously true. This is no second-hand 

 information ; a good deal of it, moreover, is quite 

 novel. Mr. Selous discountenances the idea that the 

 lion advances on his prey by tremendous leaps ; 

 rather (according to him) it comes rushing on all four 

 legs as a dog might do, and uses its teeth for the 

 death-stroke in preference to a blow or tearing with 

 the paw and claws. The advantage of the curved 

 claws and strength of limb would rather lie in their 

 enabling the lion to hold on to his prey while the 

 great canine teeth severed arteries and pierced brain 

 cases or spinal columns. The lion, he thinks, de- 

 veloped its mane in the colder climate of Europe or 



