COLOURS AND COLORATION 29 



fectly illustrated than in the case of the wild swine and 

 the tapirs. The wild swine, at any rate those of the 

 genus Sus, and the allied species of Red River hog, when 

 adult are " self-coloured," when young are marked by 

 broad bands of white running from head to tail, on a 

 background of dark brown. In the tapirs the facts are 

 more curious. The young, both of the Malayan and 

 South American species, be it noted, very closely resemble 

 one another, the body being marked by a series of relatively 

 short, creamy-white bars, whose extremities tend to 

 overlap one another, and a number of white spots evi- 

 dently formed of disintegrated bars. The adults, however, 

 differ conspicuously one from another in this matter of 

 coloration, the American species being self-coloured, the 

 Malayan parti-coloured, the head and fore-quarters and 

 the hind-legs being black, while the rest of the trunk, 

 from the shoulders backwards, is of a dirty white, 

 forming a pattern unique among mammals. 



Now let us see what relation this longitudinally striped, 

 or longitudinally striped and spotted coloration bears to 

 the environment in which these young • pigs and tapirs 

 live. Some years ago Dr. W. N. Ridley gave us an insight 

 into the daily life of the young Malayan tapir. He found 

 that during the heat of the day it seeks the grateful shade 

 afforded by bushes, in which situation its coat is so 

 exactly like a patch of ground flecked with sunlight that 

 the soHdity of the body vanishes, as it were, into thin air. 

 And this because rays of sunlight passing between leaves 

 form numberless spots and shafts of light over the ground ; 

 so that, falling on the hide of the resting tapir, as well 

 as all around, it naturally becomes impossible to dis- 

 tinguish the stripes and spots of the resting animal from 

 the similar pattern surrounding it. 



