The Human Side of Animals | Page 6

far more polar in his haunts than even the polar bear, and is therefore exposed to the whitening influence of the wintry regions more than the bear. Yet he never turns white, but is always brown. The only enemy of this northern-dweller is the arctic wolf, and against this enemy he is protected by powerful hoofs, thick hair, and immense horns. He does not need to conceal himself, and therefore does not simulate the colour of his surroundings.
[Illustration: American Museum of Natural History, New York
THE INDIANS CLAIM THAT THE MOTHER BISON FORCED HER CALF TO ROLL OFTEN IN A PUDDLE OF RED CLAY, SO THAT IT MIGHT BE INDISTINGUISHABLE AGAINST ITS RED CLAY BACKGROUND.]
[Illustration: American Museum of Natural History, New York
THE ZEBRA IS ONE OF THE CLEVEREST OF CAMOUFLAGERS. THE BLACK-AND-WHITE STRIPES OF HIS BODY GIVE THE EFFECT OF SUNLIGHT PASSING THROUGH BUSHES.]
Mimetic resemblances are worked out with great difficulty, except in such cases as the nocturnal animals, which simply become one with their surroundings. Mice, rats, moles, and bats wear overcoats that are very inconspicuous, and when suddenly approached they appear almost invisible. Some of the North American Indians claimed that buffaloes made their calves wallow in the red clay to prevent them from being seen when they were lying down in the red soil.
The kinds of protection from these mimetic resemblances are many and varied: the lion, because of his sandy-colouring, is able to conceal himself by merely crouching down upon the desert sands; the striped tiger hides among the tufts of grass and bamboos of the tropics, the stripes of his body so blending with the vertical stems as to prevent even the natives from seeing him in this position. The kudu, one of the handsomest of the antelopes, is a remarkable animal in several ways. His camouflage is so perfect that it gives him magnificent courage. With his spiral horns, white face, and striped coat tinted in pale blue, he is almost invisible when hiding in a thicket. The perfect harmony of his horns with the twisted vines and branches, and the white colourings with blue tints in the reflected sunlight conceal him entirely.
The snow-leopard, which inhabits Central Asia, is stony-grey, with large annular spots to match the rocks among which he lives. This colouration conceals him from the sheep, upon which he preys; while the spotted and blotchy pattern of the so-called clouded tiger, and the peculiarly-barred skin of the ocelot, imitate the rugged bark of trees, upon which these animals live.
One of the most unusual and skilled mimics is the Indian sloth, whose colour pattern and unique eclipsing effects seem almost incredible to those unfamiliar with the real facts. His home is in the trees, and he has a deep, orange-coloured spot on his back, which would make him very conspicuous if seen out of his home surroundings. But he is very clever, and clings to the moss-draped trees, where the effect of the orange-coloured spot is exactly like the scar on the tree, while his hair resembles the withered moss so strikingly that even naturalists are deceived.
Henry Drummond must have known the animal world rather well when he remarked that "Carlisle in his blackest visions of 'shams and humbugs' among humanity never saw anything so finished in hypocrisy as the naturalist now finds in every tropical forest. There are to be seen creatures, not singly, but in tens of thousands, whose every appearance, down to the minutest spot and wrinkle, is an affront to truth, whose every attitude is a pose for a purpose, and whose whole life is a sustained lie. Before these masterpieces of deception the most ingenious of human impositions are vulgar and transparent. Fraud is not only the great rule of life in a tropical forest, but the one condition of it."
Many of the larger cats live in trees, and most of them have spotted or oscillated skins, which aid them in hiding among foliage plants. The puma who wears a brown coat is an exception, but it must be remembered that he does not need the kind of coat his fellow friends wear. He clings so closely to the body of a tree while waiting for his prey as to be almost invisible.
This phenomenon is true throughout the animal world. Everywhere does Nature aid in escape and capture. Only those skilled in the ways of the wild fully realise how conspicuous amidst foliage, for instance, would be a uniform colouration. A parti-coloured pattern is extremely deceptive and thus protective, and for this reason one seldom sees in Nature a background of one colour; and since the large majority of animals need concealment, it is necessary for them to be clothed in patterns that vary.
These variations are especially noticeable in young animals, and furnish them with a mantle that