GAY PLUMES AND DULL 



the bushes, with the brown oven-bird and the brown 

 thrasher, is the chewink with conspicuous mark- 

 ings of white and black and red. Here are some 

 of the soft gray and brown tinted warblers nesting 

 on the ground, and here is the more conspicuous 

 striped black and white creeping warbler nesting 

 by their side. Behold the rather dull-colored great 

 crested flycatcher concealing its nest in a hollow 

 limb, and its congener the brighter-feathered king- 

 bird building its nest openly on the branch above. 



Hence, whatever truth there may be in this theory 

 of protective coloration, one has only to look about 

 him to discover that it is a matter which Nature 

 does not have very much at heart. She plays fast 

 and loose with it on every hand. Now she seems to 

 set great store by it, the next moment she discards 

 it entirely. 



If dull colors are protective, then bright colors 

 are non-protective or dangerous, and one wonders 

 why all birds of gay feather have not been cut off 

 and the species exterminated: or why, in cases 

 where the males are bright-colored and the females 

 of neutral tints, as with our scarlet tanager and 

 indigo-bird, the females are not greatly in excess of 

 the males, which does not seem to be the case. 



II 

 We arrive at the idea that neutral tints are pro- 

 tective from the point of view of the human eye. 

 61 



