Evening capital news. (Boise, Idaho) 1901-1927, 1914-07-12
The Personnel of the Expedition
and the Start

Of any bird ! have ever seen in the
open country, and moreover this adj
vertising coloration exists In both
sexes and throughout the year. It is
a brilliant white, all over, except the
long wing quilts and the ends of the
tail. which are black. The first one l
saw, at very long distance, thought
must be an albino. 1t perches on the
top of q bush or tree watching for its
prey, and it shines in the sun Like
silver mirror. Every hawk. cat. or man
must see it; no one can help seeing it.
A Point for the Scientists.
These common Argentine birds, most
of them of the open country, and all
OF them with a strikingly advertising
celebration, are interesting because of
their beauty and their habits. They
are also interesting because they offer
such Illuminating examples of the
truth that many of the most common
and successful birds not merely lack
concealing coloration. but possess
coloration which Is in the highest de-
gree revealing. The coloraton and the
habits of most of these birds are such
that every hawk or other foe that can
see at all must have it's attention at
tracted to them. Evidently in their
cases neither the celebration nor any
habit of concealment based on the col
grafton is survival factor, and this
although they live in a land teeming
with bird eating hawks.
Among the higher vertebrates there
are many known factors which have
influence, some in one set of cases,
some in another set of cases, in the
development and preservation OF spe-
cies Courage, intelligence. adaptable
ity. prowess, bodily vlgor, speed. alert
ness ability to hide, ability to build
structures which will protect the young
while they are helpless, fecundity-
all, and many more like them, have
their several places; and behind all
these visible causes there are at work
other and often moro potent causes OF
which as yet science can say nothing.
Some species owe much to a given at
tribute which may be wholly lacking
in influence on other species; and
every one of the attributes above
enumerated Is a survival factor in
some species, while in others it has no
survival value whatever, and in yet
others, although Of benefit. 1t Is not of
sufficient benefit to offset the benefit
conferred on foes or rivals by totally
different attributes.
Intelligence, for instance, is of course,
survival factor; but today there ex-
list multitudes of animals with very
little intelligence which have persisted
through immense periods Of geologic
time either unchanged or else without
any change in the direction of in
creased intelligence; and during their
species-life they have witnessed the
death OF countless other species of far
greater intelligence, but in other ways
less adapted to succeed in the envir-
onmental complex. The same state
ment can be made of all the many,
many other known factors in develop
ment, from fecundity to concealing col
grafton; and behind them lie forces as
to which we veil our ignorance by the
use of high sounding nomenclature
as when we use such a convenient but
far from satisfactory term as ortho-
genesis.
In the next article Colonel Roose-
Welt will tell how he and his party
boarded the comfortable gunboat- yacht
of the president of Paraguay and
steamed steadily up the mighty river
toward the Tropic Of Capricorn,
through the ideal cattle country Of this
continent