look like a real sunset or dawn, repeated, on the opposite side of the heavens, — 

 either east or west as the case may be. 



All these white and pink (or red) fishing-birds and vegetable-eaters have 

 the habit of staying more or less quiet, for longer or shorter periods, in the 

 near vicinity of their aquatic prey and enemies. Egrets and white herons 

 stand hour-long motionless or wade cautiously about in shallow ponds, rivers, 

 lagoons and estuaries, — ready with poised head and lancelike bill to stab the 

 first fish or frog that comes within their reach. (See Figs. 116-118.) White 

 pelicans fish while swimming; but the brown pelicans plunge headlong from 

 on wing into the water, catching their prey by violent abrupt assault, like 

 the gannets, the terns, the kingfishers, and the Osprey; and all these plunging 

 fishers have characteristics of coloration in common, which are not typical 

 of the stealthy fishers. These consist in brilliant ruptive patterns, chiefly on 

 the head, but sometimes also on the wings and body — patterns which doubtless 

 have the effect of confusing the suddenly assaulted quarry as to the exact 

 position and the true form of its attacker. Such are the tern's black head- 

 caps, the black or dark marks about the base of the Common Gannet's pale 

 sea-green bill, the clearly-contrasted brown and white stripes and patches 

 of the brown pelicans' heads, the motley costumes of kingfishers, etc. At 

 the instant of attack, such markings ' break up' and confuse the apparition 

 of the attacker, doubtless often to the bane of the attacked, whose life or death 

 must often depend on the turn of a hair toward quicker or slower, surer or less 

 sure darting off. Stealthy fishers, on the other hand, would in many cases be 

 misfavored by such ' ruptive' markings, which during their quiet stalking and 

 watching would increase their conspicuousness against the sky. On the 

 other hand, even the black wing-tips and like markings of gannets and other 

 plunging fishers, serve as 1 dazzling' and 1 distractive ' marks, — like those 

 of the tails of winter ptarmigans and weasels — at the moment of the bird's 

 arrowy arrival with part-folded wings (and tail) among his finny prey. 



Then there are two or more classes of animals merely patched with sky- 

 pictures. Such are the more or less largely white-backed skunks, and kin- 



155 



