PROTECTIVE COLORATION 
519 
elusive of creatures, one of the most difficult to see, either by the 
hunter who follows it or by the animal on which it preys. But 
the cougar is found in every kind of country-—in northern pine- 
woods, in thick tropical forests, on barren plains and among rocky 
mountains. Mr. Thayer in his introduction states that 44 one may 
read on an animal’s coat the main facts of his habits and habitat, 
without ever seeing him in his home. 1 ’ It would be interesting to 
know how he would apply this statement to the cougar, and, if he 
knew nothing about the animal, tell from its coat which specimen 
lived in a Wisconsin pine-forest, which among stunted cedars in 
the Rocky Mountains, which on the snow-line of the Andes, which 
in the forest of the Amazon, and which on the plains of Patagonia. 
With which habitat is the cougar’s coat supposed especially to 
harmonize ? A lioness is coloured like a cougar, and in Africa we 
found by actual experience that the very differently-coloured 
leopard and lioness and cheetah and serval were, when in precisely 
similar localities, equally difficult to observe. It almost seems as 
if with many animals the matter of coloration is immaterial, so 
far as concealment is concerned, compared with the ability of the 
animal to profit by cover and to crouch motionless or slink 
stealthily along. 
Again, there seems to be much truth in Mr. Thayer’s statement 
of the concealing quality of most mottled snake-skins. But 
Mr. Thayer does not touch on the fact that in exactly the same 
localities as those where these mottled snakes dwell, there are often 
snakes entirely black or brown or green, and yet all seem to get 
along equally well, to escape equally well from their foes, and prey 
with equal ease on smaller animals. In Africa, the two most 
common poisonous snakes we found were the black cobra and the 
mottled puff-adder. If the coloration of one was that best suited 
for concealment, then the reverse was certainly true of the colora¬ 
tion of the other. 
But perhaps the climax of Mr. Thayer’s theory is reached when 
he suddenly applies it to human beings, saying: 44 Among the 
aboriginal human races, the various war-paints, tattooings, head 
decorations, and appendages, such as the long, erect mane of eagle 
feathers worn by North American Indians—all these, whatever 
purposes their wearers believe they serve, do tend to obliterate 
them, precisely as similar devices obliterate animals.” Now, this 
simply is not so, and it is exceedingly difficult to understand how 
any man trained to proper scientific observation can believe it to 
be so. The Indian, and the savage generally, have a marvellous 
and wild-beast-like knack of concealing themselves. I have seen 
in Africa ’Ndorobo hunters, one clad in a white blanket and one in 
a red one, coming close toward elephants, and yet, thanks to their 
skill, less apt to be observed than I was in dull-coloured garments. 
