Canon Tristram, who knows these regions and their natural history so well, says, in an often quoted passage: "In the desert, where neither trees, brushwood, nor even undulations of the surface afford the slightest protection to its foes, a modification of colour 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 isabelline or sand colour." Passing on to the tropical regions, it is among their evergreen forests alone that we find whole groups of birds whose ground colour is green.
Parrots are very generally green, and in the East we have an extensive group of green fruit-eating pigeons; while the barbets, bee-eaters, turacos, leaf-thrushes (Phyllornis), white-eyes (Zosterops), and many other groups, have so much green in their plumage as to tend greatly to their concealment among the dense foliage.

There can be no doubt that these colours have been acquired as a protection, when we see that in all the temperate regions, where the leaves are deciduous, the ground colour of the great majority of birds, especially on the upper surface, is a rusty brown of various shades, well corresponding with the bark, withered leaves, ferns, and bare thickets among which they live in autumn and winter, and especially in early spring when so many of them build their nests.
Nocturnal animals supply another illustration of the same rule, in the dusky colours of mice, rats, bats, and moles, and in the soft mottled plumage of owls and goatsuckers which, while almost equally inconspicuous in the twilight, are such as to favour their concealment in the daytime.
An additional illustration of general assimilation of colour to the surroundings of animals, is furnished by the inhabitants of the deep oceans.

Professor Moseley of the Challenger Expedition, in his British Association lecture on this subject, says: "Most characteristic of pelagic animals is the almost crystalline transparency of their bodies.
So perfect is this transparency that very many of them are rendered almost entirely invisible when floating in the water, while some, even when caught and held up in a glass globe, are hardly to be seen.

The skin, nerves, muscles, and other organs are absolutely hyaline and transparent, but the liver and digestive tract often remain opaque and of a yellow or brown colour, and exactly resemble when seen in the water small pieces of floating seaweed." Such marine organisms, however, as are of larger size, and either occasionally or habitually float on the surface, are beautifully tinged with blue above, thus harmonising with the colour of the sea as seen by hovering birds; while they are white below, and are thus invisible against the wave-foam and clouds as seen by enemies beneath the surface.

Such are the tints of the beautiful nudibranchiate mollusc, Glaucus atlanticus, and many others.
_General Theories of Animal Colour._ We are now in a position to test the general theories, or, to speak more correctly, the popular notions, as to the origin of animal coloration, before proceeding to apply the principle of utility to the explanation of some among the many extraordinary manifestations of colour in the animal world.