be very interesting to discover whether or not the dusky individuals tend to 

 be more strictly nocturnal in their habits; for they are certainly less well 

 equipped for stalking and ambushing their prey in the broad daylight. 



The giraffe's or camelopard's pattern is simpler than the leopard's, con- 

 sisting of but two well-marked color tones instead of three. The dark spots 

 are rich brown instead of black, representing, as it were, a consolidation of 

 the leopard's two darker tones. Giraffes, however, are subject to a good 

 deal of individual (?), sexual, and geographical variation in the color and 

 shade of the spots, as well as of the branching, irregular light bands by which 

 the spots are divided. But their pattern always maintains its potency for 

 obliteration, particularly in (low) woods, amid shimmering sunshine and 

 leaf shadows, and more distant leaves and leaf-clusters and small branches 

 silhouetting against the sky. In this, their foremost and special obliterative 

 function, the mammalian and reptilian checker-patterns, cooperant with a 

 full obliterative shading, must be reckoned among patterns which picture the 

 background, like those much more elaborate and minute of many birds. 

 (See Chapters IV, V, VI, VII, etc.) But they have also, in common with 

 almost all other patterns, and notably all that are sharp and bold, a simple, 

 inherent obliterative effect. The sharp spots thickly scattered over the leop- 

 ard's coat, and the eccentric patchwork-marks worn by his huge, stilt-legged, 

 ruminant namesake, are in themselves a kind of mask or veil for the solid 

 animal forms beneath them. Their bright, irregular and inorganic pattern 

 takes from the visibility of their wearers' contours, and goes far toward effac- 

 ing all the minor details and chance-shown lesser lights and shadows of the 

 beasts' solid but obliteratively shaded forms. A glance at Figs, i, 14, and 

 87 will tell the reader more about this than many words. In the case of such 

 an animal as the Jaguar shown in Fig. 87, the perfection of the obliterative 

 shading, denying as it does the presence of a solid body underneath the spots, 

 tends to make these seem to belong to the background, even if that is not 

 elsewhere spotted; and thus the simple i retrocessive ' obliteration is in part 

 maintained. Nevertheless, a highly spotted (or otherwise closely marked) 



134 



I 



