tempt to detect its ghostly form. The bird is in plain sight, but invisible- 

 such is the wonderful power of full obliterative coloration. Nature has, as 

 it were, used the bird's visually unsubstantialized body as a canvas on which 

 to paint a forest vista. In this there is nothing of mimicry, as we define it. 

 Mimicry uses the solid aspect of an animal's body, modified in form and color, 

 to simulate some other solid object. But vista- or background-picturing, 

 based on the complete obliteration of the animal's solid aspect, which causes 

 its actual form to pass for an empty space, is a widely different principle. 

 Even in the terrestrial moments of the Ruffed Grouse's life, it is usually seen 

 against more distant backgrounds than are the Goatsucker and Woodcock, 

 because it largely lacks the squatting-habit, except in the case of the young, 

 or the female sitting on her eggs. (See Figs. 31-33.) Noteworthy in this 

 connection is the fact that the markings of the sexes are decidedly unlike. In 

 the female, the most critical portion of whose life is probably the annual three 

 weeks' brooding on her ground nest, the blotchy near-ground pattern pre- 

 dominates over the forest- vista pattern; whereas in the male it is just the 

 other way. It is difficult or impossible to distinguish the two styles of pattern 

 absolutely in either case. But they are so adequately commingled, in one or 

 the other predominance, that, however the bird is placed, some portion is 

 almost certain to coalesce perfectly with its background; and with this key- 

 note of complete obliteration the remainder of the pattern amply serves its 

 purpose. Indeed, not even this degree of actual immediate 'matching' is 

 necessary for the bird's concealment. His costume is a sort of patchwork of 

 pictures, subtly intermingled, each an epitome of some particular type or 

 detail of woodland scenery. Such details and bits of landscape are charac- 

 teristic of the place in general, and even when those furnished by the grouse's 

 pattern are unmatched by any in his immedjate background he is not apt to 

 be revealed. Only an artist, perhaps, can rightly appreciate the profound 

 and perfect realism of these background-pictures worn by birds and other 

 animals. Just as a good caricature drawing of a man looks in one sense 

 more like the man than the man himself, so, in a far more high and wonderful 



39 



