514 APPENDIX E 
animals, while healthy and unhurt, seeks to escape observation by 
hiding. 
This is the direct reverse of what occurs with many bush ante¬ 
lopes. Undoubtedly many of the latter do seek to escape observa¬ 
tion. 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 coloured—at any rate, if the coloration is 
protective for one it certainly is not for the other. The bushbuck 
is a boldly-coloured beast, and I do not believe for a moment that 
it ever owes its safety to protective coloration. 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 other¬ 
wise. When it lies down, its obliterative shading entirely dis¬ 
appears, 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 stand¬ 
ing, 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 never any difficulty in seeing 
them ; the difficulty is to prevent their seeing the hunter. 
Mr. Thayer’s thesis is “ that all patterns and colours whatsoever 
of all animals that ever prey or are preyed on are under certain 
normal circumstances obliterative.” Either this sentence is entirely 
incorrect or else it means nothing; either no possible scheme of 
coloration can be imagined which is not protective (in which case, 
of course, the whole theory becomes meaningless), or else the state- 
