PROTECTIVE COLORATION 
517 
is at least need of very great caution in deciding that either 
represents obliterative coloration of a sort that benefits the 
creature in catching its prey. Similarly, to say that white herons 
and pelicans and roseate-coloured flamingoes and spoon-bills are 
helped by their coloration, when other birds that live exactly in 
the same fashion and just as successfully, are black, or brown, or 
black and white, or grey, or green, or blue, certainly represents 
mere presumption, as yet unaccompanied by a vestige of proof, 
and probably represents error. There is probably much in the 
general theory of concealment coloration, but it is not possible to 
say how much until it is thoroughly tested by men who do not 
violate the advice of the French scientific professor to his pupils : 
“ Above all things remember in the course of your investigations 
that if you determine to find out something you will probably 
do so.” 
I have dealt chiefly with big game. But I think it high 
time that sober scientific men desirous to find out facts should 
not leave this question of concealing coloration or protec¬ 
tive coloration to theorists who, however able, become so 
interested in their theory that they lose the capacity to state facts 
exactly. Mr. Thayer and the various gentlemen who share his 
views have undoubtedly made some very interesting discoveries, 
and it may well be that these discoveries are of widespread impor¬ 
tance. But they must be most carefully weighed, considered, and 
corrected by capable scientific men before it is possible to say how 
far the theory applies and what limitations there are to it. At 
present all that is absolutely 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 certainly 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 introduction, Mr. Thayer says of birds that the so-called 
“ nuptial colours, etc., are confined to situations where the same 
colours 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 colours “ 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 circumstances.” 
It is really difficult to argue about a statement so flatly contra¬ 
dicted by ordinary experience. Taking at random two of the 
