Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 75.djvu/567

Rh The one thing which all these sting and stink bearers have constantly and in common, with perhaps no exception, even including the dogs and hyenas which have also anal glands (cats lack such glands and also lack the habit of digging) is this: In pursuit of food, or in storing it, they all either go bodily into holes, as bees and wasps into flowers and fruit cavities, or ants into their galleries, and as do the weasel family after burrowing mammals, or like the grubbing species above mentioned, and foxes, stick their heads into holes for similar purposes. In all these cases these rear-armed species have a common need to be so armed, being totally helpless to defend themselves while thus immersed. Of all animal adaptations this stink apparatus was the thing most to be expected in a part of the animal so entirely defenseless.

Picture a bee deep in a flower, or a badger with his head jammed deep in a mouse hole—what a chance for his enemy! But these hind ends have taken care of themselves. Now notice the thing that seems to bring final ridicule on the "badge" theory. Take, for instance, the grison, Patagonian weasel, bridled weasel, the badgers and the skunk, species whose white pattern is worn upon the head (the skunk's tail is normally a mixture of black and white hairs—like a gray cloud); the moment when these animals most need to advertise the offensiveness of their armament would be when they were most defenseless, and this is, of course, when their heads are in holes, and at such a moment their "badges," being on their heads, are concealed! The apparent reason for the white patterns' extending so often along the back nearly to the tail is very simple. The act of digging or of stepping down into a hole tends to bring the fore part of an animal lower than his rear, and this, to eyes upon the turf, brings the whole of his back against the sky, and an erect white tail (like the upturned plumes of the egret) additionally blends the wearer into the sky.

To realize how inevitable was the development of special rear protectors a man has only to conceive what an anxious sensation he himself would experience if in a jungle he had to spend much time with his head down a hole, and the rest of his body a tempting bait for tigers.

In fine, we find upon certain species of carnivora that we know to be more or less scavengers and catchers of small fry such as require rather to be picked up than stalked or chased, and on others that we suspect of having the same habit, the same sky-picturing patterns that, from the eye-level of their prey, efface the top contours of most other slow walking feeders-on-small-life, in all branches of the animal kingdom. We find, on the other hand, a large number of Mustelidæ, as well as a number of other carnivora, well armed with stink-glands, but, as if because of not feeding in the same manner, entirely without top-white patterns.