animal, even though perfectly counter shaded, is of course out of place and 

 more or less clearly visible against a perfectly plain background, because his 

 figure silhouettes against the monochrome scene by virtue of its continuous 

 pattern. This fact, or the converse of it, the noticeableness of a monochrome 

 object against a patterned background, has already been demonstrated (Chap- 

 ter III, Figs. 15-16). But few natural backgrounds, even in the open lands, 

 are entirely immaculate; and hence some degree of flecking is nearly always 

 advantageous, though often not essential, in an animal's obliterative colora- 

 tion. 



There is a complete gradation of types between the leopards, ocelots, 

 giraffes and boas, with their rich, specialized, forest-picturing 'checker' 

 patterns, through such more weakly and ambiguously spotted beasts as the 

 Ounce and Serval — the one apparently modified for snow and the other for the 

 more open country — to the immaculate lions and (certain) antelopes. In 

 the same way another beautiful and important type of obliterative pattern, 

 namely, transverse striping, grades from its extreme development on the 

 zebras and tigers, through various lessened and modified forms, to its last 

 and slightest appearance on such animals as Livingstone's Eland, and other 

 antelopes, from which it is but -a step to the stripeless ruminants and car- 

 nivores of the open ground. Among all the bolder obliterative patterns worn 

 by mammals, that of the zebras (Equus zebra and E. burchelli) probably bears 

 away the palm for potency and beauty.* The wonderful photographs of 

 live wild zebras (Figs. 88 and 89), here reproduced with the permission of 

 their author, Herr Schillings, and his publishers, clearly illustrate one main 

 phase of the obliterative force of these beasts' patterns. The briUiant cross- 

 bands 'cut their wearers all to pieces,' and look exactly like the stripings of 

 the lighted reeds across their, shadowed background. To aid in a fuller 



* Kipling, in one of his "Just So Stories," "How the Leopard Got His Spots," which we have 

 just read for the first time, gives a most keen and appreciative description of the marvelous conceal- 

 ing-power of the costumes of the zebra, leopard, and giraffe. He does not analyze the magic of these 

 patterns, for he says nothing of the principle which underprops it, counter shading; but the magic in 

 operation he has perceived and told about as no other man we know of has. 



135 



