French, while in The Times of December 3 Mr. Tennant is reported as saying that 'large quantities have already been sent out and are still being sent out' to our men. The danger of thin armour has often been referred to; but I have never seen the obvious suggestion that for certain purposes heavy armour might be used. I refer to posts of special danger at night, when it is cool and neither quick movement nor heavy loads are necessary: e. g. listening posts, patrolling for enemy snipers, superintending wire, trench work, &c. I am confident that experiments on special armour for men performing such duties as these would have saved many valuable lives.
Many years ago some excitement was aroused by a light bullet-proof shield that, worn by a horse, was tested on a London stage, I think at the Alhambra. The late Rev. F. Jervoise Smith, F.R.S., Millard Lecturer in Engineering at Oxford, was much interested in the exhibit, and made some experiments in his laboratory with encouraging results. I do not mention the principle of his method, which he explained to me, because I believe it to be new, but it is of course at the service of the authorities.
Ever since A. R. Wallace published his Essays on Natural Selection, now forty-five years ago, many British naturalists have been keenly interested in the methods by which animals are hidden from their enemies and their prey, and the subject has been more fully studied here than in any other country. We might therefore have expected that when the provision of a concealing uniform was considered the naturalists would have been consulted, or at any rate that known principles would have been studied. So far from this being the case, naturalists saw to their amazement a military cap that