26 PUTORIUS ERMTNEA. 



severe winter-cold the animal bas turned white in December 

 or January. In spring just the reverse phenomenon can be 

 studied; in February or March the white garb is substi- 

 tuted by the brown summer-dress, beginning with a coloring 

 of the head a. s. o. and ending with the white part of the 

 tail where the black of that organ stops. As this coloring 

 and discoloring is always very symmetrical it is evident 

 that there must occur phases of special beauty. Now there 

 is in our Museum a specimen so wonderfully striped and 

 lined and moreover this so exceedingly symmetrical, that 

 if we did not know its origin, one should be seduced to 

 describe it as a distinct species. It has been captured on 

 April 15th 1869 in Holland and presented to the Museum 

 by the Institution St. Vincentius a Paulo. It is a not full- 

 grown specimen, apparently born the foregoing spring. 



The brown color of the upperparts and sides is locally 

 interrupted by rather small stripes or bauds of white colored 

 hairs, which are longer than the other ones, representing 

 the last rest of the elongated hairs of the white winter- 

 dress. From a rather large spot of white hairs on the 

 nape of the neck run two white bands along the upper- 

 parts of each flank ending under the base of the tail ; on 

 each side on the shoulderblades are two white lines be- 

 ginning at the same point of the white line just described, 

 the anterior one ending on the breast, the other one de- 

 scribes a curve and ends on the upperpart of the foreleg; 

 on the haunches there is on each side a more or less defi- 

 ned circle, joining to the white side stripe, describing a 

 curve and ending at the root of the tail: hands and feet 

 white; a white ring separates the brown colored tail from 

 the black terminal part of that organ. 



Notes from the Leyden Rluseum, Vol. XXII. 



