ch is given certain
equipment in form, colour, voice, demeanour, ambitions, desires, and
natural habitat. Some are given much, others but little. Many have
succeeded well in the art of camouflage while endeavouring to make a
success in life. This success has brought the desired opportunity of
mating, rearing young, bequeathing to them their special gifts and
living in ease and comfort.

One of the most successful and striking cases of protective colouration
in young animals is found in wild swine. Here there is longitudinal
striping which marks them from head to tail in broad white bands, over a
background of reddish dark brown. The tapirs have a most unique form of
marking. It is similar in the young of the South American and Malayan
species. Their bodies are exquisitely marked in snow-white bars. At
their extremities these bars are broken up into small dots which tend to
overlap each other. During the daytime these young animals seek the
shade of the bushes and as the spots of sunlight fall upon the ground
they appear so nearly one with their environment as to pass unnoticed by
their enemies. The adults, however, vary greatly one from another in
colouration. The American species is self-coloured, while the Malayan
has the most unique pattern known to the animal world. The
fore-quarters, the head, and the hind-legs are black, while the rest of
the body from the shoulders backwards is of a dirt-white colour.

It has been observed by all students of Nature that bold and gaudy
animals usually have means of defending themselves that make them very
disagreeable to their enemies. They either have poisonous fangs, sharp
spines, ferocious claws, or disagreeable odours. There are still others
that escape destruction because of the bad company with which they are
associated by their enemies.

The reptiles offer us many good examples of mimicry. Most arboreal
lizards wear the colour of the leaves upon which they feed; the same is
true of the whip-snakes and the tiny green tree-frogs. A striking
example of successful camouflage is found in the case of a North
American frog whose home is on lichen-covered rocks and walls, which he
so closely imitates in colour and pattern as to pass unnoticed so long
as he remains quiet. I have seen an immense frog, whose home was in a
damp cave, with large green and black spots over his body precisely like
the spots on the sides of his home.

_Author Note:_ The word "mimicry" as used here