and all crimson barr'd,
And full of silver moons, that, as she breathed,
Dissolved, or brighter shone, or interwreathed
Their lustres with the glorious tapestries...."_

--KEATS (_on Lamia, the snake_).

The art of concealment or camouflage is one of the newest and most
highly developed techniques of modern warfare. But the animals have been
masters of it for ages. The lives of most of them are passed in constant
conflict. Those which have enemies from which they cannot escape by
rapidity of motion must be able to hide or disguise themselves. Those
which hunt for a living must be able to approach their prey without
unnecessary noise or attention to themselves. It is very remarkable how
Nature helps the wild creatures to disguise themselves by colouring them
with various shades and tints best calculated to enable them to escape
enemies or to entrap prey.

The animals of each locality are usually coloured according to their
habitat, but good reasons make some exceptions advisable. Many of the
most striking examples of this protective resemblance among animals are
the result of their very intimate association with the surrounding flora
and natural scenery. There is no part of a tree, including flowers,
fruits, bark and roots, that is not in some way copied and imitated by
these clever creatures. Often this imitation is astonishing in its
faithfulness of detail. Bunches of cocoanuts are portrayed by sleeping
monkeys, while even the leaves are copied by certain tree-toads, and
many flowers are represented by monkeys and lizards. The winding roots
of huge trees are copied by snakes that twist themselves together at the
foot of the tree.

In the art of camouflage--an art which affects the form, colour, and
attitude of animals--Nature has worked along two different roads. One is
easy and direct, the other circuitous and difficult. The easy way is
that of protective resemblance pure and simple, where the animal's
colour, form, or attitude becomes like that of its habitat. In which
case the animal becomes one with its environment and thus is enabled to
go about unnoticed by its enemies or by its prey. The other way is that
of bluff, and it includes all inoffensive animals which are capable of
assuming attitudes and colours that terrify and frighten. The colours in
some cases are really of warning pattern, yet they cannot be considered
mimetic unless they are thought to resemble the patterns of some extinct
model o