In mammalia, we notice the frequency of rounded spots on forest or tree
haunting animals of large size, as the forest deer and the forest cats;
while those that frequent reedy or grassy places are striped vertically,
as the marsh antelopes and the tiger. I had long been of opinion that
the brilliant yellow and black stripes of the tiger were adaptive, but
have only recently obtained proof that it is so. An experienced
tiger-hunter, Major Walford, states in a letter, that the haunts of the
tiger are invariably full of the long grass, dry and pale yellow for at
least nine months of the year, which covers the ground wherever there is
water in the rainy season, and he adds: "I once, while following up a
wounded tiger, failed for at least a minute to see him under a tree in
grass at a distance of about twenty yards--jungle open--but the natives
saw him, and I eventually made him out well enough to shoot him, but
even then I could not see at what part of him I was aiming. There can be
no doubt whatever that the colour of both the tiger and the panther
renders them almost invisible, especially in a strong blaze of light,
when among grass, and one does not seem to notice stripes or spots till
they are dead.
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