but in their disguising-coloration, which presents few or no new or particularly 

 noteworthy features. They are almost all obliteratively shaded, and wear 

 colors and markings which tend to make them invisible against their normal 

 backgrounds ; but few of them show a very high development of special adaptive 

 coloration. Some terrestrial kinds, living in rotten logs and stumps and be- 

 neath dead leaves, are extremely gaudy — wearing much bright blue, green, 

 purple, or sometimes red. But if we learned more about their habits, we 

 should probably discover some remarkable protective use of these bright 

 colors. They are usually brightest on the tail — sometimes confined to it — 

 and this suggests that they may serve the salamanders in the same way that 

 the banded tails of pheasants, etc., evidently serve these birds (see Chapter 

 XVII) — that is, as baits or targets, to make their enemies strike behind (when 

 they are running) and miss the vital parts. This supposition is in fact ex- 

 tremely plausible, inasmuch as the tails of such amphibians, like those of many 

 lizards, are easily detachable, at any point, and are often left writhing in the 

 grasp of enemies, while the vital fore-parts to which they belonged escape. 

 Other terrestrial salamanders are marked with brown and brownish red — 

 dead-leaf and rotten-wood tints— and with dusky shadow-tones, in lengthwise 

 ' secant' stripes. Others have transversely secant markings, and some are 

 rather brightly pied with black and whitish, or yellow. Others, again, 

 are marked with neat, circular spots of yellow, on a black ground, like the 

 little tortoise described on page 177, but with the spots proportionately much 

 larger. We, personally, know too little about the habits of these various species 

 to speak with confidence about the special adaptive fitness of their markings. 

 The coloration of the aquatic species corresponds more or less closely to that 

 of fishes. Some have pronounced obliterative patterns, picturing mottled 

 pond-bottoms, etc.; but the disguising coloration of many of them is very 

 obscure. 



We have now finished our skimming survey of vertebrates. The remaining 

 three chapters will deal with crawling and flying invertebrate creatures. 



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