African Nature Notes and Reminiscences. Frederick Courteney Selous
with its surroundings as long as it remains perfectly still, as soon as it moves "it jumps to the eyes," as the French say, no matter what its colour may be. What is called protective coloration to be effective must be motionless. Movement, even very slight movement, at once destroys its efficacy. But no herbivorous animals can remain constantly motionless. They lie down and rest certainly during the heat of the day, which is, however, just the time when all carnivorous animals are sleeping. At night and in the early mornings and late evenings they move about feeding, and it is at such times that carnivorous animals hunt for their prey. In the dark these latter are undoubtedly guided by scent and not by sight, and I cannot see that it matters much to them whether the beasts on which they prey are black or red or grey or spotted or striped; whilst, if they should happen to be still hunting after daylight, any antelopes or other animals feeding and moving about within their range of vision would at once be seen whatever their colour might be. Every old hunter knows how easy it is to overlook any animal, no matter what its colour or surroundings, as long as it is motionless, and how easy it is to see it as soon as ever it moves.
I have never yet heard any explanation given of the black, and therefore most conspicuous, coloration of the Cape buffalo. If any animals needed protective coloration buffaloes certainly did, for in the interior of South Africa they formed the favourite food of the lion, and enormous numbers of them must have been annually killed by these powerful carnivora, which seemed to live with and follow the larger herds in all their wanderings.
It certainly seems very strange to me that giraffes, which are very seldom killed by lions or other carnivora, should have found it necessary to evolve a colour which harmonises with their surroundings, as a protection against such foes, whilst buffaloes, which in many districts used once to form the principal food for the lions living in the same countries, have retained throughout the ages a coloration which is everywhere except in deep shade singularly conspicuous. Altogether, a very long experience of the larger mammals inhabiting Africa and some other parts of the world has convinced me that neither the need of protection against carnivorous foes nor the theory of recognition marks can satisfactorily explain all the wonderful diversity of colour to be seen in the coats of wild animals.
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