equipped with a thick coat of formidable spines, but have no obliterative 

 shading, nor any other pronounced elements of concealing-coloration ; whereas 

 their closest relatives which lack the peculiar defensive armaments are all 

 (if we set aside a few fossorial forms) obliteratively colored to the full. The 

 echidna's sole known ally, Omithorhynchus paradoxus, the Duck-billed Plat- 

 ypus, has no spiny mantle, but its brown furry covering is obliteratively shaded. 

 So also with the coypou, beaver, and other rodents more or less closely allied 

 to porcupines, and with all the spineless Insedivora akin to hedgehogs, with 

 the possible exception of a few of those which live in dark tunnels under- 

 ground, namely, moles and shrews. But the most strictly fossorial shrews, 

 and even moles, must sometimes come out into the daylight, where they are 

 exposed to the attacks of predaceous birds and beasts; and accordingly we 

 find some degree of obliterative shading in the coats of almost all the species. 

 There may be some kinds which are as dark on the belly as on the back; but 

 not one of the most monochrome-looking species we have examined has proved 

 to be so. 



Among apes and monkeys, the want of pronounced counter shading is by 

 no means uncommon, though it does not characterize the majority of species. 

 This lack may be fully seen on the big anthropoid, semi-erect apes, the scrawny 

 hair of whose breasts and bellies is as dark as that of their backs. But, 

 thanks to their size and strength and ferocity, these great apes belong in part 

 to the class of 'immune' beasts, while they also lack the need of obliterative 

 coloration for. offense which the truly rapacious animals have. The Orang- 

 outan of Borneo is described as being the king of its native jungles, dreading 

 only man; and we may well assume that the huge gorilla of central Africa 

 enjoys equal privileges. 



It might be supposed that whales were sufficiently protected by their 

 colossal size and strength, and that the toothless kinds, which feed on 

 the minute, lowly animal organisms that swarm in the ocean like dust 

 motes in house air, would have no possible need of any kind of disguising- 

 coloration. Yet almost all of them have a fully developed obliterative shad- 



