Note 17 — Chapter III

But when the moors are covered with snow, poachers, who emerge in bands from the mines, often put a shirt over their clothes, and manage to approach grouse at a time when a fair sportsman cannot get a shot; but this is the only occasion on which one uniform colour could be advantageous. A mass of any single colour always catches, and arrests the eye. Nature tells us this; animals that browse, elephants, buffaloes, and large deer, as well as those which can escape from their enemies by speed, are mostly of one colour. On the contrary, the tiger kind, snakes, and all that lie in wait for, and seize their prey by stealth, wear a garment of many colours, so do the smaller animals and most birds, which are saved from capture by the inability of their foes to distinguish them from the surrounding foliage or herbage. The uniform of our rifle corps is too much of one hue.