of chance; it depends on
many considerations, but in the majority of cases tends to protect the
animal from danger by rendering it less conspicuous. Perhaps it may be
said that if coloring is mainly protective, there ought to be but few
brightly colored animals. There are, however, not a few cases in which
vivid colors are themselves protective. The kingfisher itself, though
so brightly colored, is by no means easy to see. The blue harmonizes
with the water, and the bird as it darts along the stream looks almost
like a flash of sunlight; besides which, protection is not the only
consideration. Let us now consider the prevalent colors of animals and
see how far they support the rule.

Desert animals are generally the color of the desert. Thus, for
instance, the lion, the antelope, and the wild ass are all
sand-colored. "Indeed," says Canon Tristram, "in the desert, where
neither trees, brushwood, nor even undulation of the surface afford
the slightest protection to its foes, a modification of color which
shall be assimilated to that of the surrounding country is absolutely
necessary. Hence, without exception, the upper plumage of every bird,
whether lark, chat, sylvain, or sand grouse, and also the fur of all
the smaller mammals and the skin of all the snakes and lizards, is of
one uniform sand color."

It is interesting to note that, while the lion is sand-colored like
the desert, the long, upright, yellow stripes of the tiger make it
very difficult to see the animal among the long dry grasses of the
Indian jungles in which it lives. The leopard, again, and other tree
cats are generally marked with spots which resemble gleams of light
glancing through the leaves.

The colors of birds are in many cases perhaps connected with the
position and mode of construction of their nests. Thus, we know that
hen birds are generally less brightly colored than the cocks, and this
is partly, perhaps, because bright colors would be a danger to the
hens while sitting on their eggs. When the nest is placed underground
or in the hole of a tree, etc., we find it no longer to be such an
invariable rule that the hen bird is dull-colored; but, on the
contrary, she is then often as gaily colored as the male. Such, for
instance, is the case with the hen kingfisher, which is one of the
brightest of British birds and one of the very few which make their
nests underground; the hen woodpecker, which is also gaily colored and
builds in hollow tre