126 THE ZOOLOGIST. ■ 



overvalue the efficacy of all these attempted concealments. They 

 are not all successful, — nothing is, absolutely, — but are still 

 means to an end. We are too apt to consider a disguise perfect 

 because we have only accidentally discovered it, while at the same 

 time our existence does not depend upon the result of the search. 

 An amateur or an arm-chair naturalist is speechless with wonder 

 at the least exhibition of wood-craft, a common attribute of many 

 agricultural labourers and gypsies. Jefferies has accurately 

 diagnosed the sense perceptions of a young gamekeeper : — " He 

 will decide at once, as if by a kind of instinct, where any par- 

 ticular bird or animal will be found at that hour." And in a 

 similar manner, but in a greater degree, will be formed the 

 destructive experience of the bird or mammal whose life depends 

 upon the discovery of its prey. Mimicry makes the successful 

 search more difficult, the accidental escape more frequent, and 

 actual extermination by such means alone, impossible. The 

 enemy in his close pursuit finds other prey to satisfy his hunger, 

 like the gold prospector who in his quest may come across non- 

 auriferous minerals which tend to assuage his financial longings; 

 and so an average of destruction is reached, and none alone are 

 compelled to be " confessors " to nature's inexorable rule. 



It is probable that highly protected or mimicking species are 

 only destroyed by their most acutely sense-organized enemies, 

 and have a general immunity from the attacks of the ordinary 

 animal pirates. We have no more reason to predicate a dead 

 level in the intelligence of a single species or genus of animals 

 than we have to believe that the same character exists in Homo 

 sapiens himself. For in nature, pace Ecclesiastes, the race is to 

 the swift, and the battle is to the strong, though the exceptions 

 of " time and chance " may prove the rule. Stroll along a trout 

 stream when anglers are at work, and notice how empty baskets 

 reward the majority, or those who perceive not. Now observe 

 the skilled killer of Trout, how he will detect a hidden fish 

 under the opposite bank, and soon possess the same.* Know- 



* Some persons' eyes seem to have an extraordinary power of seeing 

 through water, and of distinguishing at a glance a fish from a long swaying 

 strip of dead brown flag, or the rotting pieces of wood which lie at the 

 bottom. The ripple of the breeze, the eddy at the curve, or the sparkle of 

 the sunshine cannot deceive them; while others, and by far the greater 

 number, are dazzled and see nothing."— (Jefferies, « Gamekeeper at Home.'). 



