e has a lovely coat, golden yellow in
color. You could see him far across the open field, if he only stood
there. But he is so timid that he does not often come out in the open.

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