And why has he a yellow coat? Because he lives in a place where there is plenty of yellow grass; and if he stood right in the middle of the grass, and did not move, nobody could see him. Even if a tiger were looking for him, and the deer stood quite still in the grass, the tiger could not find him.
In another chapter I shall tell you how other animals have on their bodies the color of the place where they live, or where they want to hide.
Barking Deer—One of the Wonders of Nature
Now I am coming to one of the nicest kinds of deer in the world, and I am sure you will just love him! He lives in India, and is called the barking deer; only, he is not exactly a deer, but an antelope. You remember what I have told you before, about an antelope having a different kind of horns? Still we must call him the barking deer, as people have already given him that name.
He is very small, about the size of a goat. If there is any danger from an enemy, the barking deer is small enough to hide in any little bush or behind a fallen tree or log; or else he can run away very quietly through the under bushes. And he runs so quickly that his enemy soon loses sight of him.
He is called the barking deer, because he can bark or yap almost like a dog. But, you may ask, why does he want to bark at all, if he is afraid of some enemy? Will not the enemy hear him, and then catch him?
Yes, that is quite true. And yet the fact that he does bark is one of the most wonderful things in the jungle. It is so wonderful that in another book I shall tell you more about it. But now I shall tell you just this:
There are some animals which are so deadly that they could kill off many, many other animals. So, as the only way to save the other animals from being all killed, God has made some special animals to fight those deadly animals.
There is the cobra, which is a snake, and which has such a deadly poison that it could kill almost all other animals in the jungle by just biting them. So, to save the other animals from being killed by the cobra, God made the mongoose. He is a plucky little creature, about the size of a cat. And he will fight and kill every cobra he sees! But really he is such a wonderful animal that I must keep him for another book, when you are old enough to know him better and to love him.
But sometimes the deadly animal is too strong to be killed himself. There is the tiger. He can kill and eat many kinds of animals. But who can kill him? No animal! At least, the elephant and the buffalo could kill the tiger if the tiger should let them catch him and trample on him. But the tiger does not let any animal catch him. Then how can the other animals be saved from the tiger?