ANIMALS ANIMALS
the hope of not being made out against their
background. (1910.) Mem. Ed. V, 46; Nat. Ed. IV, 40.
____________. I have no question whatever. . . that
concealing coloration is of real value in the struggle
for existence to certain mammals and certain birds, not
to mention invertebrates. The night-hawk, certain
partridges and grouse, and numerous other birds which
seek to escape observation by squatting motionless, do
unquestionably owe an immense amount to the way in
which their colors harmonize with the surrounding
colors, thus enabling them to lie undetected while they
keep still, and probably even protecting them
somewhat if they try to skulk off. In these cases, where
the theory really applies, the creature benefited by the
coloration secures the benefit by acting in a way which
enables the coloration to further its concealment. . . .
But it is wholly different when the theory is pushed to
fantastic extremes, as by those who seek to make the
coloration of big-game animals such as zebras,
giraffes, hartbeests, and the like, protective. (1910;
Appendix of African Game Trails.) Mem. Ed. VI, 377-
378; Nat. Ed. V, 325.
____________. I have studied the facts as regards big
game and certain other animals, and I am convinced
that as regards these animals the protective-coloration
theory either does not apply at all or applies so little as
to render it necessary to accept with the utmost reserve
the sweeping generalizations of Mr. Thayer and the
protective-coloration extremists. It is an exceedingly
interesting subject. It certainly seems that the theory
must apply as regards many animals, but it is even
more certain that it does not, as its advocates claim,
apply universally; and careful study and cautious
generalizations are imperatively necessary in striving
to apply it extensively, while fanciful and impossible
efforts to apply it where it certainly does not apply can
do no real good. It is necessary to remember that some
totally different principle, in addition to or in
substitution for protective coloration, must have been
at work where totally different colorations and color
patterns seem to bring the same results to the wearers.
The bear and the skunk are both catchers of small
rodents, and when the color patterns of the back, nose,
and breast, for instance, are directly opposite in the
two animals, there 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. (1910; Appendix of African Game
Trails.) Mem. Ed. VI, 399-400; Nat. Ed. V, 344.
____________. Scientific men are no more immune
from hysteria and suggestion than other mortals, and
every now and then there arises among them some fad
which for quite a time carries even sane men off their
feet. This has been the case with the latter-day
development of the theories of protective coloration and
of warning and recognition marks—but especially the
first. Because some animals are undoubtedly protectively
colored and take advantage of their coloration and are
served by it, a number of naturalists have carried the
theory to fantastic extremes. They have applied it where
it does not exist at all, and have endeavored to extend it
to a degree that has tended to make the whole theory
ridiculous. Most good observers are now agreed that in
the higher vertebrates, that is, in mammals and birds, the
coloration of probably the majority of the species has
little or nothing to do with any protective or concealing
quality. There are some hundreds of species which we
can say with certainty are protectively colored; there are
a great number which we can say with certainty are not
protectively colored. As regards others we are still in
doubt. There have not been sufficiently extensive
observations made of wild animals under natural
conditions to enable us to speak with certainty as to just
the part played by protective coloration among large
numbers of the smaller mammals and birds. We are,
however, able to speak with certainty as regards most big
birds and especially most big mammals. (Introduction to
C. H. Stigand's Hunting the Elephant in Africa; 1913.)
Mem. Ed. XIV, 495; Nat. Ed. XII, 364-365.
____________. My discussion of revealing and
concealing coloration among birds and mammals covers
but a tiny corner even of the question of animal
coloration; but I do not think that it is possible to
controvert my main thesis, which is, that as regards these
higher vertebrates, concealing coloration (with or
without counter-shading as a basis), as a survival factor
working through natural selection, has been of trivial
consequence in producing the special color patterns on
the great majority of birds and mammals; that it has in an
immense number of cases been wholly inactive, so that
in very many of these cases the animals are
extraordinarily conspicuous in nature at almost all times,
including the vital moments of their lives; and that in
most of the large number of cases where it has actually
been a factor it has merely set limits of conspicuousness,
sometimes very narrow, sometimes very broad, which
must not be exceeded, but within which innumerable
tints and patterns are developed, owing to some entirely
different slant of causation. (American
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