APPENDIX E 
505 
markings are conspicuous.* None of these big or medium sized plains 
animals, while healthy and unhurt, seeks to escape observation by hiding. 
This is the direct reverse of what occurs with many bush antelopes. 
Undoubtedly many of the latter do seek to escape observation. I have 
seen waterbucks stand perfectly still, and then steal cautiously off through 
the brush; and I have seen duiker and steinbuck lie down and stretch their 
heads out flat on the ground when they noticed a horseman approaching 
from some distance. Yet even in these cases it is very hard to say whether 
their coloration is really protective. The steinbuck, a very common 
little antelope, is of a foxy red, which is decidedly conspicuous. The 
duiker lives in the same localities, and seems to me to be more protectively 
colored—at any rate, if the coloration is protective for one it certainly 
is not for the other. The bushbuck is a boldly colored beast, and I do 
not believe for a moment that it ever owes its safety to protective colora¬ 
tion. The reedbuck, which in manners corresponds to our white-tailed 
deer, may very possibly at times be helped by its coloration, although 
my own belief is that all these bush creatures owe their power of conceal¬ 
ment primarily to their caution, noiselessness, and power to remain 
motionless, rather than to any pattern of coloration. But all of these 
animals undoubtedly spend much of their time in trying to elude 
observation. 
On the open plains, however, nothing of the kind happens. The little 
tommy gazelle, for instance, never strives to escape observation. It has 
a habit of constantly jerking its tail in a way which immediately attracts 
notice, even if it is not moving otherwise. When it lies down, its oblitera¬ 
tive shading entirely disappears, because it has a very vivid black line 
along its side, and when recumbent—or indeed for the matter of that 
when standing up—this black line at once catches the eye. However, 
when standing, it can be seen at once anyhow. The bigger Grant’s 
gazelle is, as far as the adult male is concerned, a little better off than the 
tommy, because the bucks have not got the conspicuous black lateral 
stripe; but this is possessed by both the young and the does—who stand 
in much more need of concealing coloration. But as I have already 
so often said, neither concealment nor concealing coloration plays any 
part whatever in protecting these animals from their foes. There is 
* A curious instance of the lengths to which some protective-coloration theorists go 
is afforded by the fact that they actually treat these bold markings as obliterative or 
concealing. In actual fact the reverse is true; these face markings are much more apt 
to advertise the animal’s presence. 
