Editor's Summary
26 July 2007
RED army
If the British had been quicker to react to the findings of naturalist and British Army colonel Charles Hamilton Smith, the course of history might have been different. His field research, carried out in 1800, showed that soldiers wearing red were more than twice as likely to receive a bullet than those in grey. And he also gets credit in Darwin's Origin of Species for his work on the colouring of horses.
Correspondence: How a naturalist found safe colours for soldiers
James T. Costa
doi:10.1038/448408c