THE RABBIT OR CONY 



223 



confronted by the serious objection that the appearance of a 

 rabbit's tail as seen by a man's eyes at a height of about five 

 feet above the ground, must give quite a different impression to 

 that received by another rabbit with its eyes on the side of its 

 head, at a height of about six inches. Further, hares have 

 similar, albeit less conspicuous, tails, yet they separate when 

 alarmed. But there is no evading the fact that the tail is 

 highly conspicuous, and, therefore, consciously or unconsciously, 

 "advertising." It is clearly significant of motion, and hence, 

 probably also of alarm, so that it may well be used as " a signal 

 flag of danger." But that it is also a guide, or that other 

 rabbits follow it, is highly improbable. 



Another hypothesis is that of Mr Abbott H. Thayer, who has 

 taken the trouble to view the rabbit's scut from the position of 

 one of the beasts of prey which usually pursue it, and which are 

 nearly all beasts of low stature — that slink and crouch, as he 

 describes them. Seen in this way from below, the white tail 

 becomes, according to him, a sky-matching costume, obliterat- 

 ing the outline of the animal carrying it. The foreshortened 

 body is blotted out against the sky by the brightly displayed 

 white sky-lit stern in a manner illustrated by Mr Gerald H. 

 Thayer's^ photographs in his father's work. The effect is, 

 according to Mr Thayer, especially at night, to blur the outline 

 of the animal as seen by a carnivore, so that the latter's aim is 

 marred as it leaps at its prey. In cases of complete illusion the 

 hunted beast vanishes into air, as it were, before the carnivore 

 can get its aim for a leap, or even before it can perceive the direc- 

 tion of the quarry's flight. The tail seems, however, not to be 

 carried sufficiently high on the back to comply with the needs 

 of the Thayerian hypothesis, and, indeed, the absurdity of the 

 position taken up by its ingenious author has been amply 

 demonstrated by Mr Theodore Roosevelt.^ 



' Concealing Coloration in the Animal Kingdom, 1909, 152-153. It should be 

 remembered that in writing of " rabbits," American zoologists, unless they specially 

 state the contrary, refer to "hares." But this fact does not in this case affect the 

 argument, since everything that applies to the tail of a hare is applicable, and even 

 more so, to that of a rabbit, in which the advertising (or, according to Thayerian 

 interpretation, obliterative qualities) are developed to an extreme extent. 



^ " Revealing and Concealing Coloration in Birds and Mammals," in Bull. Amer. 

 Mus. Nat. Hist., xxx., art. viii., 119, etc., 23rd August 191 1 ; noticed by J. A. Allen, 

 The Auk, xxviii., 4th October 1911, 472-480. 



