PROTECTIVE COLORATION 
511 
beneficially affected by its protective coloration. The two animals 
cannot both be protectively coloured; they cannot each owe to its 
coloration an advantage in escaping from its foes. It is absolutely 
impossible, if one of them is so coloured as to enable it to escape 
the observation of its foes, that the other can be. As a matter of 
fact, neither is, and neither makes any attempt to elude observa¬ 
tion by its foes, but trusts entirely to vigilance in discerning them 
and Heetness in escaping from them ; although the wild ass, unlike 
the zebra, really is so coloured that because thereof it may occa¬ 
sionally escape observation from dull-sighted foes. 
Mr. Thayer’s argument is based throughout on a complete 
failure to understand the conditions of zebra life. He makes an 
elaborate statement to show that the brilliant cross-bands of the 
zebra have great obliterative effect, insisting that, owing to the 
obliterative coloration, zebras continually escape observation in 
the country in which they live. He continues : “ Furthermore, all 
beasts must have water, and so the zebras of the dry plains must 
needs make frequent visits to the nearest living sloughs and rivers. 
There, by the water’s edge, tall reeds and grasses almost always 
flourish, and there, where all beasts meet to drink, is the great 
place of danger for the ruminants, and all on whom the lion preys. 
In the open land they can often detect their enemy afar off, and 
depend on their fleetness for escape; but when they are down in 
the river-bed, among the reeds, he may approach unseen and leap 
among them without warning. It is probably at these drinkings 
places that the zebra’s pattern is most beneficently potent. From 
far or near the watching eye of the hunter (bestial or human) is 
likely to see nothing, or nothing but reed-stripes, where it might 
otherwise detect the contour of a zebra.” In a footnote he adds 
that, however largely lions and other rapacious mammals hunt by 
scent, it is only sight that serves them when they are down wind 
of their quarry; and that sight alone must guide their ultimate 
killing dash and spring. 
Now, this theory of Mr. Thayer’s about the benefit of the zebra’s 
coloration at drinking-places, as a shield against foes, lacks even 
the slightest foundation in fact; for it is self-evident that animals, 
when they come down to drink, necessarily move. The moment 
that any animal the size of a zebra moves, it at once becomes 
visible to the eye of its human or bestial foes, unless it skulks in 
the most cautious manner. The zebra never skulks, and, like most 
of the plains game, it never, at least when adult, seeks to escape 
observation—indeed, in the case of the zebra (unlike what is true 
of the antelope) I am not sure that even the young seek to escape 
observation. I have many times watched zebras and antelopes— 
wildebeest, hartebeest, gazelle, waterbuck, kob—coming down to 
water; their conduct was substantially similar. The zebras, for 
