306 BRIGHT COLOURS OF SKULKING ANIMALS, [chap. x. 



used in spots or stripes, or in any other design, 

 but in such proportion that their actual mixture 

 would have produced the sober tint required, then, at 

 rifle distances, unless the pattern be too large, all 

 individuality of the colours ■will be found to have 

 disappeared, and they will have merged into exactly 

 the same tint that would have been produced had the 

 same colours been mixed together in the same pro- 

 portion on the pallet. It wUl also be found that a 

 very large pattern may be used if the margins of the 

 various bands or spots of colour be a little shaded ofi". 

 In this way we can in a great degree account for the 

 gaudy liveries with which the most skulking of animals 

 are usually dressed. The cat tribe is almost imiver- 

 sally decked out with spots or bars. Snakes and 

 lizards are the most briUiant of animals ; but all these, 

 if viewed at a distance, or with an eye whose focus 

 is adjusted, not exactly at the animal itself, but to an 

 object more or less distant than it, become apparently 

 of one hue, and lose all their gaudiness. No more 

 conspicuous animal can weU be conceived, according 

 to common idea, than a zebra ; but on a bright star- 

 light night the breathing of one may be heard close 

 by you, and yet you will be positively imable to see 

 the animal. If the black stripes were more numerous 

 he would be seen as a black mass ; if the wliite, as a 

 white one ; but their proportion is such as exactly to 

 match the pale tint which arid ground possesses 

 when seen by moonhght. I therefore protest against 

 the usual notion that people have, as exemplified in 

 the choice of a rifleman's dress. It is infinitely too 



