Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 75.djvu/566

560 merely their heads into holes for their prey, go boldly under ground and attack such prey as hares and marmots, or fasten upon fowls much larger than they themselves. From all such prey their foreheads have nothing to gain by being white, since in the hole all is dark, and in the case of these large victims attacked above ground, the attacker, if it be a weasel, is looked down at, not seen against the sky, while the martens,

arboreal, acrobatic, swift and bloodthirsty, catch doubtless much after the bold manner of the small weasels, and obviously would not seem to have so much use for concealment from any particular viewpoint. The pine marten, however, is enough light-foreheaded to save his head from too much silhouetting in his above-ground forest operations against small terrestrial life.

In tall grass, to catch small terrestrial prey like mice, cats creep low, and fling themselves high in air, dropping flat outspread upon the dazed victim. Foxes vary this by coming down head-first upon it. In neither case would top-white help them—and they haven't it.