THE ZEBRA 101 



coloration and markings of zebras that a con- 

 siderable and not uninteresting controversy took 

 place a short time ago, to which, it may be re- 

 membered, Mr. Roosevelt very ably repUed. On 

 the one side it was contended that the coloration 

 of all animals — and birds too, for the matter of 

 that — was specially designed by a process of 

 natural selection with a view to rendering them 

 invisible, in the surroundings most affected by 

 them, to their particular natural enemies, and 

 one of the beasts to which somewhat emphatic 

 reference was made in proof of these contentions 

 was the zebra. 



Now I am perfectly ready to admit that against 

 a background of thin forest or high grass, at a 

 distance of several hundreds of yards, especially 

 if the sun be shining upon them from the front, 

 a herd of zebras, so long as it remains motionless, 

 is unquestionably very hard to see. So extra- 

 ordinarily do their striping and general colour 

 scheme blend with such surroundings as I have 

 described that the eye — of man, be it under- 

 stood — is extremely liable to overlook them, and 

 the same may indisputably be said of other 

 varieties. But where this theory, which is such a 

 touching testimonial to the care and forethought 

 of benevolent Nature, would seem to me to be 

 weak and faulty lies in the fact that when in the 

 course of the ages the coloration of the fauna 

 became definitely fixed, the game families as a 

 whole knew but one enemy — namely, the great 

 carnivora. These, hunting as they do by night 

 and by scent, could not, as it seems to me, have 

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