1 JANUARY 1954, Page 22

CAMOUFLAGE and concealment in war, are highly developed arts, but

I doubt if anything ever contrived by man could be half so good as the natural camouflage of a crouching rabbit. a woodcock on its feeding ground or a fish hovering in a stream. The woodcock's markings are a wonderful blend with its back- ground, but concealment for wild creatures such as the rabbit depends on something more than colouring to match one piece of ground. It is an extraordinary thing how well a rabbit can hide on a grass field, a well-trodden path or out on the open furrows. Concealment is half due to a sort of neutral colouring and half to something else that man learns very slowly --an ability to freeze and remain abso- lutely motionless. This was brought home to me again the other day when by an odd accident I discovered that I was looking at a rabbit crouching by a drystone wall. I stared at it for some time, hardly believing my eyes. The rabbit did not twitch. even a single hair and did not move until I did. Indeed, until I moved, there were several seconds when I lost sight of the rabbit although my gaze did not move as much as a fraction of an inch from its outline. I have had similar experien-