PROTECTIVE COLORATION 
513 
been occasions when I have seen antelopes quicker than I have 
seen the zebra with which they happened to be associated. More 
often the light has been such that I have seen the zebra first. 
Where I was, in Africa, the zebra herds were on the same ground, 
and often associated, with eland, oryx, wildebeest, topi, hartebeest, 
Grant's gazelle, and Thomson’s gazelle. Of all these animals, the 
wildebeest, because of its dark coloration, was the most conspicuous 
and most readily seen. The topi also usually looked very dark. 
Both of these animals were ordinarily made out at longer distances 
than the others. The gazelles, partly from their small size and 
partly from their sandy coloration, were, I should say, usually a 
little harder to make out than the others. The remaining animals 
were conspicuous or not, largely as the light happened to strike 
them. Ordinarily, if zebras were mixed with elands or oryx, I saw 
the zebras before seeing the eland and oryx, although I ought to 
add that my black companions on these occasions usually made out 
both sets of animals at the same time. But in mixed herds of 
hartebeests and zebras I have sometimes seen the hartebeests first, 
and sometimes the zebras. 1 
The truth is that this plains game never seeks to escape observa¬ 
tion at all, and that the coloration patterns of the various animals 
are not concealing, and are of practically no use whatever in 
protecting the animals from their foes. The beasts above 
enumerated are coloured in widely different fashions. If any one 
of them was really obliteratively coloured, it would mean that 
some or all of the others were not so coloured. But, as a matter 
of fact, they are none of them instances of concealing coloration ; 
none of the beasts seek to escape observation, or trust for safety to 
eluding the sight of their foes. When they lie down they almost 
always lie down in very open ground, where they are readily seen, 
and where they can hope to see their foes. When topi, roan 
antelope, hartebeest, and so forth, are standing head-on, the under 
parts look darker instead of lighter than the upper parts, so that 
in this common position there is no “ counter-shading.” The 
roan and oryx have nearly uniform coloured coats which often do 
harmonize with their surroundings ; but their bold face-markings 
are conspicuous. 2 None of these big or medium-sized plains 
1 Mr. Thayer tries to show that the cross stripes on the legs of zebras are of 
protective value. He has forgotten that in the typical Burchell’s zebra the legs are 
white ; whether they are striped or not is evidently of no consequence from the 
protective standpoint. There is even less basis for Mr. Thayer’s theory that 
the stripings on the legs of elands and one or two other antelopes have any, even 
the slightest, protective value. 
2 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. 
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