THE COLORATION OF LARGE ANIMALS 15 
near relatives the bongo, the kudu, and the elands, are 
characterised, as a rule, by having the whole body marked by 
narrow white stripes, which are, for the most part, vertical 
(although in some cases they form a kind of network) 
upon a fawn or rufous ground. And these animals, as is 
attested by the large size of their ears, are chiefly dwellers 
in forest. Directly, however, any member of the group has 
left the forest for more open country, as in the case of the 
Cape eland and the Cape bushbuck, the stripes more or 
less gradually disappear. Further, those species which 
inhabit the densest forest have their colours the most 
brilliantly developed, as is well exemplified in the case of 
the lesser and the greater kudu, the former of which is 
more of a forest animal than the latter. One of the 
most brilliantly coloured of all is the bongo of the 
equatorial forests. 
Clearly, then, narrow vertical white stripes on a fawn 
or chestnut ground, which we have reason to regard as a 
very primitive type of animal coloration, are connected 
with a forest life, and the presumption is that they are 
of a protective nature. Confirmation of this view—if con- 
firmation be needed—is afforded by two animals belonging 
to widely different groups—namely, Grévy’s zebra and the 
Somali giraffe. The former of these animals differs from 
all its kindred by its enormous and heavily fringed ears, 
and these proclaim it to be a dweller in brushwood or 
forest rather than in open plains, a supposition which 
receives definite confirmation by the photographs taken 
during Lord Delamere’s East African journey. But 
Grévy's zebra likewise differs from all its kindred by the 
extreme narrowness of its stripes, white stripes alternating 
with black ones of the same width. Here, then, narrow 
white stripes are clearly an adaptation to a forest life. And 
