CHAPTER XXI 



MAMMALS, CONTINUED. MARKINGS OF COUNTER- SHADED MAMMALS. THE 

 MAIN TYPES OF THEIR OBLITERATIVE PICTURE PATTERNS 



HILE the beasts of the open land, such as lions, kangaroos, and many 



» » hares, are notable for their almost complete lack of markings, al- 

 though obliteratively shaded and tinted to a high degree, the costumes of many 

 of the forest-haunting and tree-climbing mammals are characterized by strong 

 and beautiful picture-patterns. Among these, there is perhaps none more 

 potent and remarkable than the checkered sun-fleck and leaf -shadow pat- 

 tern, worn by leopards, jaguars, ocelots, giraffes, and other sylvan mammals, 

 and even by some snakes — e. g., several of the great constrictors. It varies, of 

 course, from species to species; but its essential character is always the same, 

 and it is always the handmaid of complete obliterative shading. Who has 

 not noticed, in the forest, the flickering play of circular (or broken) sun-flecks 

 and branched, encompassing leaf shadows? There is no more typical and 

 familiar sylvan sight. Where the forest's crown is not too dense, this beau- 

 tiful tremulous pattern marks all the brown ground where the matted dead 

 leaves lie, and even checkers the sides and bases of some of the upright trunks, 

 and the tops and sides of the naked lower branches. In deeper woods, where 

 the leafage is extremely full and crowded, little or none of this sun-engendered 

 pattern penetrates to the ground, which then is cloaked in uniform and quiet 

 shade. But somewhere between the dim brown ground and the green and 

 gaudy-flashing tree-tops there is always a large intermediate tract, where, 

 amid trunks and spreading branches, twigs and scattered leaves, the check- 

 ered pattern reigns supreme, dancing softly on the upper side of everything; 

 and, helped by the varied glinting of the lower leaves themselves, it transmutes 



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