NOTES ON SOME OF OUR BRITISH MAMMALS, I! 
The Stoat (Mustela eyminea) and the Weasel (Mustela vulgaris) 
still hold their own amongst us, the Stoat not infrequently 
changing to the white or ermine dress during the winter. 
In Leicestershire, although many partially blanched speci- 
mens came under my notice, I never met with a perfectly 
white example, though, I believe, in this district, such have 
occurred, but the head and sometimes the flanks generally 
retain some trace of the brown coat of summer. The tip 
of the tail, as is well known, always remains black, ‘‘which,” 
as Dickenson quaintly remarks, ‘“‘an ingenious French Nat- 
uralist imagines, enables them to discover each other in 
their nocturnal excursions over snow in search of food.” 
This theory is now generally accepted as the correct one, 
and is supported by the fact that the Blue or Mountain 
Hare of Scotland similarly retains the black tips to its ears 
during the winter season. 
Mr. Brown says that the Stoat ‘‘has been known to 
hunt the hare in concert, following on the track until the 
animal has been run down.” So far as my _ personal 
experience goes this is more commonly the case with the 
Weasel than the Stoat, which usually hunt in couples, but 
I have a note given me by a Mr. Percival, who seemed an 
observant and trustworthy man, of a company of five stoats 
making a raid on a farmer’s fowls near Lutterworth. 
From the commotion they were causing, the attention of 
Mr. Percival and his friends was directed to the spot, and 
there were the stoats, three out of the five being partly 
bleached—for it was winter-time—these being the only 
white stoats, besides the specimen I was shewing him, 
which my informant had ever seen. 
In England the Weasel very rarely, if ever, blanches, 
though it does so in more northern latitudes, Norway and 
Sweden for instance. I once saw a white weasel in a 
taxidermist’s shop in Leicester, but, as the specimen was 
stuffed, I was unable to tell whether it was an Albino or 
not. 
