The Making of Species 
scampering towards the burrow, thanks to the 
white under-surface of the tail. 
Even as Wallace out-Darwin’s Darwin, so does 
Mr Abbott Thayer, an American naturalist and 
artist, out-Wallace Wallace. That gentleman 
seems to be of opinion that a// animals are 
cryptically or, as he calls it, concealingly or obliter- 
atively coloured. Even those schemes of colour 
which have hitherto been called conspicuous are, 
he asserts, “purely and potently concealing ” 
when looked at properly, that is to say, with the 
eye of the artist. 
Lest it be thought unnecessary to criticize a 
hypothesis which appears to be based upon the 
assumption that animals see with the eye of the 
artist, we may say that Professor Poulton writes 
approvingly of Thayer’s theory. He frequently 
alludes to it in his Assays on Evolution, and he 
published an account of it in the issue of Mature, 
dated April 24, 1902. Moreover the hypothesis 
has been enunciated in such scientific journals 
as The Auk (1896) and The Year-Book of the 
Smithsonian Instetutzon (1897). 
Thayer asserts that all animals, or at any rate 
the great majority, including many that are 
usually supposed to be conspicuously coloured, 
are in reality obliteratively coloured—that is to 
say, coloured in such a way that the effects of 
light and shade are completely counteracted, with 
the result that they are invisible. 
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