GOOD HUNTING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19974, 16 June 1928, Page 7 (Supplement)

GOOD HUNTING.

JUNGLE LIFE AS IT IS. It is always disturbing to have one's settled - beliefs, whether scientific or religious, boldly attacked, but doubly so when those beliefs have been formed at secondhand from dogmatic theorists. Surely, for. instance, the value of protective colouring was decided long ago. let here is Major itadclit'fe Dug more, JbMi.G.S., author of "African Jungle Lite," " iKtcing his dools " about it. " 1 started out and for several years continued with au absolute conviction that .Nature provided all animal lifo with some sort of protective power or form or colour. Experience and observation have caused me to change my idea, so far as the larger mammals are concerned. . . The leopard is always given as au excellent example of protective marking . . . yet the animal hunts chiefly at night when the value of its colours is not worth considering, and during the day when sleeping it naturally keeps still and consequently would escape notice regardless of its colour. . . On the plains zebras, with their distinctive striped coats, arc neither more nor less visible than, eland and hartebeest, who have plain coats. Then comes the question why animals should need protective colouring: is it to save them from their enemies or to enable them to hunt their prey? If the former, then why should their enemies be also protected by their colouring? If the latter,. why, then, should their prey be equally given a protecting colour, and further, why should Nature make it easy for one animal to kill another. Further, the examples of animals in northern countries turning white to match the snow is often used as an example by the "protectionists." Why, then, does the Arctic hare retain its black eye, which is so very conspicuous against the snow . Apart from these provocative and puzzling speculations the hook contains life-histories, after the style of Mr. Thompson Seton, of lion, oleP"^" 1 ' buffalo, rhinoceros and giraffe. lne stories are beautifully illustrated in cO - our by the author, and all show that understanding sympathy with the creatures of the wild which is one of the most encouraging signs of an advancing civilisation.