ica are, according to an excellent observer, often protectively
coloured. Mrs. M.E. Barber remarks that "A casual observer would
scarcely imagine that the highly varnished and magnificently coloured
plumage of the various species of Noctarinea could be of service to
them, yet this is undoubtedly the case. The most unguarded moments of
the lives of these birds are those that are spent amongst the flowers,
and it is then that they are less wary than at any other time. The
different species of aloes, which blossom in succession, form the
principal sources of their winter supplies of food; and a legion of
other gay flowering plants in spring and summer, the aloe blossoms
especially, are all brilliantly coloured, and they harmonise admirably
with the gay plumage of the different species of sun-birds. Even the
keen eye of a hawk will fail to detect them, so closely do they resemble
the flowers they frequent. The sun-birds are fully aware of this fact,
for no sooner have they relinquished the flowers than they become
exceedingly wary and rapid in flight, darting arrow-like through the air
and seldom remaining in exposed situations. The black sun-bird
(Nectarinea amethystina) is never absent from that magnificent
forest-tree, the 'Kaffir Boom' (Erythrina caffra); all day long the
cheerful notes of these birds may be heard amongst its spreading
branches, yet the general aspect of the tree, which consists of a huge
mass of scarlet and purple-black blossoms without a single green leaf,
blends and harmonises with the colours of the black sun-bird to such an
extent that a dozen of them may be feeding amongst its blossoms without
being conspicuous, or even visible."[67]

Some other cases will still further illustrate how the colours of even
very conspicuous animals may be adapted to their peculiar haunts.

The late Mr. Swinhoe says of the Kerivoula picta, which he observed in
Formosa: "The body of this bat was of an orange colour, but the wings
were painted with orange-yellow and black. It was caught suspended, head
downwards, on a cluster of the fruit of the longan tree (Nephelium
longanum). Now this tree is an evergreen, and all the year round some
portion of its foliage is undergoing decay, the particular leaves being,
in such a stage, partially orange and black. This bat can, therefore, at
all seasons suspend from its branches and elude its enemies by its
resemblance to the leaves of the tree."[68]

Even more curious is the cas