such species as have, in their background, colors that these patterns match, to the eyes of certain other animals whose sight they need to avoid. They are found on skunks, civets, badgers, teledus, ratels, for instance, and the animal life devoured by these carnivores is said to consist largely of worms, insects and mice, most of which are presumably either caught on the surface or dug out of the turf, i. e., procured on a lower level than the predator's head. Such of this list of
| Fig. 8. | Fig. 9. |
| Fig. 8 shows that a monochrome figure will continue distinguishable, because of its continuity of color, even when largely eclipsed by interposed forms. | |
| Fig. 9 shows how much less distinguishable an animal would be in the same situation if his head, feet and tail were light colored. | |
| Fig. 10. | Fig. 11. |
| In Fig. 10 we see simply the skunk's reproduction of the other light-colored details which partly form the animal's background, and partly mask his form, so that both his darks and his lights tend, as It were, to dissolve their partnership and ally themselves to their counterparts in the surroundings. | |
| Fig. 11. Here we see a skunk whose patterns are experiencing exactly the same over-darkening as that of the right-hand butterfly in Fig. 6. This sketch and that of the butterfly illustrate one of the greatest uses of pattern in forest species in combatting the silhouetting propensity universal to animals observed in a dim forest illumination against lighter regions beyond them. | |
victims as can see would certainly have much more chance to escape, were not what would be a dark-looming predator's head converted, by its white sky-counterfeiting, into a deceptive imitation of mere sky. Now let us see whether such stench-gland bearers as hunt in a bolder way wear the white "badges." We find at once that minks, martens and most weasels, though well-armed with the same glands, have no top white, and, instead of hunting along the earth's surface or putting
