Some eight years ago a distinguished American painter, Mr. Abbott Thayer, was able to add very importantly to our knowledge of the ways in which colour serves to conceal animals when in their natural surroundings. Mr. Thayer was able to do this owing to the fact that he was a devoted student of woodland life. This, however, alone was not enough. Mr. Thayer had the special ability to deal with this subject which comes from the trained eye of an artist. He had, above all, the knowledge of “tone values” and of the illusive and delusive effects of false shading and of colour-spots and bars, and of complementary colours and “irradiation”—which only a painter who deals every day in the most practical way with these matters can attain to. Mr. Thayer showed eight years ago—and demonstrated conclusively by means of models, one of which he presented to the Natural History Museum at my request—that in very many cases it is of no use for an animal to be of the same colour as its surroundings, since if the animal (a bird, or a quadruped, or a fish) is of plump and rounded shape and is observed under the open canopy of heaven, a deep shadow will exist on its lower surface and make it as obvious as a shaded charcoal drawing on a piece of light-brown paper. But if the back of the animal is of a dark tint and its belly white or whitish, then the effect of light and shade is (Mr. Thayer showed) completely counteracted and the animal becomes totally invisible in its natural surroundings.
Mr. Thayer’s model demonstrating this consists of two life-size wooden models of ducks seated on a stick—one to the left, the other to the right. The stick, with the two models on it, is fixed horizontally in a box, which is open above (that is, has no lid) and is also open in front. The box is, in fact, a little stage, lit from above by the light of the sky, and its three remaining sides are sufficiently high to form a complete background to the model ducks, whose perch runs across the “scene” at some 7 in. or 8 in. from the floor of the box. The box itself is lined with a pale purplish-brown flannel, and each bird is tightly covered with the same material. When so prepared the box is placed on a table under a skylight (where it is to stay), the table being high enough to bring the ducks just below the line of sight. Of course, deep shadows are formed by the top-light on the under side of the beak, head, and body of the models, and in spite of their colour being itself identical with that of the walls of the box, they are as obvious as it is possible for anything to be. Now Mr. Thayer takes his paints and very carefully darkens the back of one of the ducks and whitens its belly and the under side of its head and beak. The light and dark regions merge into one another along the side of the bird by skilful gradation. When this shading and whitening is finished (and, of course, the perfection of the result depends on the continuance of the right amount of sunlight, which is not a thing one can always ensure in a London museum) the duck-model so treated is absolutely invisible at a distance of 10 ft. or 15 ft.—and even when one is nearer escapes notice—looking like a haze or vague shadow of a bird even to an observer who knows nevertheless that it is there and is really as solid and large as the untreated model by its side. If now some one stretches out his hand so as to cut off the top-light falling on the painted model, it immediately becomes as solid to the eye as the untreated one, and when the hand is withdrawn it melts away again like Banquo’s ghost. The models made by Mr. Thayer were, so long as I was director, exhibited in the small room between the fish gallery and the central hall of the Natural History Museum, and, if they have not yet been removed, are well worth a visit.
Mr. Thayer’s models work perfectly, and astonish every one who sees them. The great point of interest about them, however, is, that the bird with dark back and light belly is really in the condition which is quite common in a number of birds, especially ducks and wading birds, where it must act as a means of concealing the bird—just as it does in the painted model. Of course, there are vast numbers of birds not so shaded, but it is possible to explain the darker and lighter colouring, in various arrangements seen in birds, as helping to produce concealment or disappearance from view, when the habits and natural surroundings of the bird are known. So, too, with many hairy quadrupeds (mammals, or “animals,” or “beasts,” as they are often called). The white hair under the tail and about the rump, helps a running animal to escape the vision of its pursuer—blending, as Mr. Thayer shows that it does—with the white colour of the sky-line. In the case of fish—especially fresh-water fish—the dark back and light belly are very common, and although they do not help to conceal the fish when seen from above, swimming over a light-coloured river-bed, yet when looked at by other fishes or by otters in the water, the effect of the light from above on this disposition of dark and light tints on the fish’s body must be the same as that demonstrated by Mr. Thayer’s “disappearing duck,” and must often render the fish absolutely invisible, even at close quarters.
Mr. Thayer has pursued this subject during the past seven years, and last autumn he gave some interesting demonstrations in the Zoological Gardens in London. He showed a model of a white egret, which was but little noticeable when standing up clear against a bright, white-clouded sky. The long plumes on the wings, developed in the breeding season, were shown (by putting them on and taking them off) to assist in causing invisibility, since they made the side of the body flat and concealed the shadow on its rounded underside. A similar bird-model marked with strong black on the neck and legs—the rest being white—refused (so to speak) to shape itself as a bird at all, and looked at a distance of twenty yards like a bit of rock or stump of wood with a twig and dead leaf attached. The effect of different tones of brown cardboard cut into the form of a butterfly, when seen on different backgrounds, was shown; but the most interesting experiment was made with a black-green piece of cloth cut to the shape of a butterfly and fastened on to a sheet of dead-black cloth in the open air, in the presence of white cloud light of moderate brilliancy. At five yards one could see the outline of the dark-green butterfly-shaped piece; at fifteen yards one could just distinguish the edge separating the dark-green piece from the black cloth. Now Mr. Thayer stuck in the middle of the dark-green butterfly-wing a small circle of pure white (about one-third of an inch across). The effect was entirely to obliterate the previously visible edge; one could no longer see the dark-green area at all—one only saw a white spot on a continuous dark ground, the dark-green and the black were merged into one. That is no doubt due to the powerful stimulation of the sensitive “retina” of the eye by the white light of the spot; the feeble stimulation by the dark-green and black, though these remain physically as distinct from one another as before, ceases to affect the brain, which is, as it were, entirely occupied with the strong white spot. This, according to Mr. Thayer, is the value to butterflies and other animals of a violently contrasted white spot or band on a dark general colouring. The fringe of white dots and connected white flakes nearer the centre of the wing—common on the wings of butterflies—has, similarly, the result of rendering the wing-outline imperceptible and the butterfly invisible. Many such relations of colour spots and bands, as well as of dark and light markings, have been elucidated by Mr. Thayer, and will be illustrated by coloured drawings in the book which he is preparing on the subject.
While it is the fact that Mr. Thayer has thrown new light on the colour-protection and invisibility of animals, it must be remembered that there are other explanations of certain cases of brilliant colouring in animals besides that which he has so well illustrated. “Warning” colours, recognition marks, and sexually attractive colouring all certainly and demonstrably exist in well-known and well-studied kinds of animals. It is very possible that some of these colour-markings have been produced by a slight change in what were previously “concealing” patterns or colour-markings. The tendency of the human observer is to regard any colour, spot, or pattern on a bird, fish, beast, or insect as a “mark” or distinguishing “sign.” We examine these things at close quarters, and do not, unless we reflect a good deal on the matter and experiment with the object, realise that what is a mark of distinction or recognition when seen at a few inches’ distance may be an illusive and obscuring colour-scheme when seen at a distance of some feet, and in natural and habitual surroundings. It is not unlikely that we shall arrive at definite knowledge of the psychological “sight interpretations” of animals by a further study of this subject. It is in the highest degree probable that the retinal picture produced in an animal’s eye by certain spots of colour, shade, and light exhibited by another animal, are not interpreted by the receptive animal in the same way as they would be by a scrutinising, inquiring, reasoning man, even one who is what we call a “savage.” Moreover, though many English naturalists have travelled and seen “life and light” in the sunny regions of the earth, there are few students of the colour-markings of animals in our museums, especially in great cities, who have adequate experience of what colour-markings really can effect in the way of concealment and illusion when light and surrounding objects are as they are, in the tropics or sub-tropical regions. It is a fashion nowadays in the best-provided museums of natural history to exhibit stuffed beasts, birds, and insects in what are called “their natural surroundings.” The fatal objection to such exhibitions is that were the beasts, birds, and insects placed in their most usual “natural surroundings,” they would be invisible!
It is the merit of Mr. Thayer to have drawn attention to these considerations, and to have carried out some interesting demonstrations of the more frequent significance of colour-markings as means of concealment and illusion than had been recognised before his work. At the same time, it is not possible to consider the yellow and black livery of wasps, of certain evil-tasting grubs, and of poisonous salamanders as anything but a “danger-flag,” a warning to other animals that the yellow and black animal had better not be bitten and tasted. So the previous experience of animals who have bitten yellow and black creatures is appealed to, and ensures the safety of the yellow and black gentry from tentative bites which would kill them. Other recognition marks by which ill-tasting, nauseous butterflies are distinguished, and in consequence of which they escape attack, and, not only that, but are “mimicked” (as the yellow and black poisonous wasp is mimicked by some innocuous flies which thus escape attack) by other pleasant-tasting butterflies which fly with them, are considered by Mr. Thayer to be wrongly interpreted as recognition or “warning” marks. He shows, with more or less success, that the markings of the butterflies known as Heliconiæ are effective as concealment, and is therefore inclined to deny their value as “warning” marks, serving to indicate a noxious quarry best left untasted.
It is, of course, quite possible that what are “concealment markings” when viewed by an aggressive bird or lizard at a distance, may be recognised as “warning marks” when seen by the same observers at close quarters, and it is also possible that the latter may have become the more important or only important result of the colour marks of a given butterfly which were once useful as “concealment.” The possible change of significance of colour spots and markings in wild animals may be illustrated by the effect on human beings of the burglar’s crêpe mask. At the present moment probably the most prominent result of the appearance in a house full of people in the dead of night of a man with a crêpe mask over his face would be terror to those who saw him. The mask would be interpreted as a “mark” or “sign” of evil, not to say violent intentions on the part of the masked man. It would be a “warning colour,” and most unathletic individuals would severely avoid it; in fact, retire from it in alarm. But actually, the burglar’s mask—as possibly some noxious insects’ distinctive markings—was not invented for the purpose of causing alarm. Far from it! The burglar, or nocturnal malefactor, dons his crêpe mask in order to cover the white glitter of his face, and so to escape observation. In origin it is a protective coloration leading to invisibility, and only secondarily has it become a “warning colour” or “mark” at close quarters. There will be much more ascertained, and much instructive discussion as to the colours and markings of not only animals, but also of flowers and foliage, before this wonderful subject is thrashed out. I have only been able here to indicate its outlines.