patterns of this kind are accompanied by— or better, they are the accompani- 

 ment of— complete and perfectly efficient obliterative shading. They grade, 

 however, into the more bold and special types of pattern. Thus the ob- 

 scurely flecky pattern of some lynxes shows here and there a spot which is 

 halfway to the clean, sharp "rosettes" of leopards and jaguars. On the other 

 hand, the flecky pattern grades downward into nothing, so to speak, and 

 many mammals are almost or quite without markings, though perfectly coun- 

 ter shaded, and colored brown or gray like the ground or tree trunks. Such 

 are many rats, mice, shrews, etc., and, among large mammals, lions, pumas, 

 wild asses, and many horned ruminants. 



An interesting parallel between the disguising-equipments of mammals 

 and those of birds is furnished by the obliteratively marked young of many 

 species in which the adults are without markings. The special obliterative 

 costumes of young gulls and other birds was described in Chapter XIV. 

 Among mammals, some of the deer and wild swine are notable examples. 

 The adults are obliteratively shaded but unspotted, while the fawns and little 

 wild pigs are super-equipped with an obliterative pattern of light spots, which 

 lasts through their baby-time of comparative sluggishness and helplessness. 

 These spots belong to the class of generalized flecky background-patterns, 

 inclining on some fawns to sun-fleck and leaf-shadow picturing, and on pigs 

 to water-shine picturing. Some deer — ^for instance the European Fallow and 

 the Indian Axis Deer — retain the youthful pattern of obliterative flecks through 

 life. This simple, spotty pattern is connected by various intermediates with 

 other types of cervine and antelopine marking — such as the vertical bands 

 of the Koodoo, the bands, stripes and spots of the Harnessed Antelopes, the 

 softly 'ruptive' and background-picturing broad patches of whitish on light 

 brown worn by the American Prongbuck {Antilocapra americana), etc. In- 

 deed, with mammals as with birds, the special types of marking are all more 

 or less smoothly connected one with another by intermediate types — worn, 

 for the most part, by beasts which are evidently intermediate in habits also. 

 But we have now mentioned and briefly analyzed the workings of the main 



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