Sir

I enjoyed the Science in Culture article 'Hidden talent' about the London exhibition exploring the art of camouflage and its military implications (Nature 447, 148; 2007). It reminded me of a little-known Englishman who made contributions to both zoology and military camouflage.

Charles Hamilton Smith (1776–1859), a colonel in the British Army, was a naturalist who described several equine species and subspecies — now mostly synonymized with Equus — and wrote an important volume in William Jardine's Naturalist's Library series (The Natural History of Horses Lizars, Edinburgh, 1841). Charles Darwin cited this work in his Origin of Species, in connection with hybridism and equine striping patterns.

Hamilton Smith is also known to military historians for his experiment conducted in 1800 on the colour of soldiers' field uniforms. The experiment involved soldiers firing at targets of different colours, including the conspicuous red of the British soldier's field uniform. This colour was more than twice as likely as grey to receive a bullet-hole. Hamilton Smith submitted a report concluding that “the question arises whether all riflemen and light infantry should not take the field in some grey unostentatious uniform, leaving the parade dress for peace and garrison duty” (published later in the Royal Engineers' Aide Memoire to the Military Sciences, Weale, London, 1853).

Although some sections of the army readily took up Hamilton Smith's recommendations, cryptic coloration in British field uniforms was not fully adopted until the Boer War, at the end of the nineteenth century. Hamilton Smith was born in the year of the US declaration of independence; had someone conducted his experiment before that time — and had the British authorities been more willing to respond — history might have taken a rather different turn.