APPENDIX E 
509 
applies and what limitations there are to it. At present all that is abso¬ 
lutely certain is that it does not apply anywhere near as extensively as 
Mr. Thayer alleges, and that he is so completely mistaken as to some of 
his facts as to make it necessary carefully to reconsider most of the others. 
I have shown that as regards most kinds of big game which inhabit open 
places and do not seek to escape observation but trust to their own 
wariness for protection, his theories do not apply at all. They cer¬ 
tainly do not apply at all to various other mammals. Many of his 
sweeping assertions are certainly not always true, and may not be true 
in even a very small number of cases. Thus, in his introductory, Mr. 
Thayer says of birds that the so-called “nuptial colors, etc., are con¬ 
fined to situations where the same colors are to be found in the wearer’s 
background, either at certain periods of his life or all the time,” and 
that apparently not one of these colors “exists anywhere in the world 
where there is not every reason to believe it the very best conceivable 
device for the concealment of its wearer, either throughout the main 
part of this wearer’s life or under certain peculiarly important cir¬ 
cumstances.” It is really difficult to argue about a statement so flatly 
contradicted by ordinary experience. Taking at random two of the 
common birds around our own homes, it is only necessary to consider 
the bobolink and the scarlet tanager. The males of these two birds in 
the breeding season put on liveries which are not only not the “very best 
conceivable” but, on the contrary, are the very worst conceivable devices 
for the concealment of the wearers. If the breeding cock bobolink and 
breeding cock tanager are not colored in the most conspicuous manner to 
attract attention, if they are not so colored as to make it impossible for 
them to be more conspicuous, then it is absolutely hopeless for man or 
Nature or any power above or under the earth to devise any scheme 
of coloration whatsoever which shall not be concealing or protective; 
and in such case Mr. Thayer’s whole argument is a mere play upon 
words. In sufficiently thick cover, whether of trees or grass, any small 
animal of any color or shape may, if motionless, escape observation; but 
the coloration patterns of the breeding bobolink and breeding tanager 
males, so far from being concealing or protective, are in the highest degree 
advertising; and the same is true of multitudes of birds, of the red-winged 
blackbird, of the yellow-headed grackle, of the wood-duck, of the spruce 
grouse, of birds which could be mentioned offhand by the hundred, and 
probably, after a little study, by the thousand. As regards many of these 
