In all hoofed animals--antelope, deer, horses--the protective
colouration is also adapted to habitat and environment. Most deer belong
to the forest, carefully avoiding the open deserts and staying near
water. They live chiefly in the jungle or scrub, and are usually spotted
with red and white in such a way as to be almost invisible to a casual
observer; some, however, that live in the very shady places are
uniformly dark so as to harmonise with their surroundings. The wild
horses and asses of Central Asia are dun-coloured--corresponding exactly
to their sandy habitat.
The Shakesperian conception of the human world as a stage may be
paralleled in the animal world. Animals, like human beings, have all a
definite role to play in the drama of life. Each is given certain
equipment in form, colour, voice, demeanour, ambitions, desires, and
natural habitat. Some are given much, others but little. Many have
succeeded well in the art of camouflage while endeavouring to make a
success in life. This success has brought the desired opportunity of
mating, rearing young, bequeathing to them their special gifts and
living in ease and comfort.
One of the most successful and striking cases of protective colouration
in young animals is found in wild swine. Here there is longitudinal
striping which marks them from head to tail in broad white bands, over a
background of reddish dark brown. The tapirs have a most unique form of
marking. It is similar in the young of the South American and Malayan
species. Their bodies are exquisitely marked in snow-white bars. At
their extremities these bars are broken up into small dots which tend to
overlap each other. During the daytime these young animals seek the
shade of the bushes and as the spots of sunlight fall upon the ground
they appear so nearly one with their environment as to pass unnoticed by
their enemies. The adults, however, vary greatly one from another in
colouration. The American species is self-coloured, while the Malayan
has the most unique pattern known to the animal world. The
fore-quarters, the head, and the hind-legs are black, while the rest of
the body from the shoulders backwards is of a dirt-white colour.
It has been observed by all students of Nature that bold and gaudy
animals usually have means of defending themselves that make them very
disagreeable to their enemies. They either have poisonous fangs, sharp
spines, ferocious claws, or disagreeable odours. There are still others
that escape destruction because of the bad company with which they are
associated by their enemies.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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