OR, A TREATISE ON PILE. 85 
hairs. Among the lower animals, variety in the color of pile, sometimes in different fila- 
ments upon the same animal, and at others exhibiting a variety of colors in the same 
filament, is not uncommon. ‘The royal tiger of the east has pile of a fawn-colored ground, 
striped cross-wise, with black; the jaguar has also a fawn-colored ground, but he has four 
ranges of black spots, in the form of eyes; the panther has six or seven black spots; the 
leopard has ten rows; the guépard has small black spots; the zebra has transverse bands 
of blackish-brown color upon a fawn-colored ground; the couagge has the same bands, 
but they are confined to the shoulders and back. The silver fox has black hair, slightly 
tipped with white ; the spines of the porcupine are black, brown and white; so are those 
of the pecary; the white hair of the possum and raccoon is tipped with black ; the brown 
hair of a squirrel’s tail is tipped with white, &c., &c. But the most extraordinary pro- 
duction of this kind is the golden mole, (chrysocholores,) which is said to have hair of 
a green color, changeable into a bronze or copper tinge. (See Elem. de Zool., p. 298.) 
We have had no opportunity of examining this pile, but conjecture that these changeable 
hues are occasioned by the various reflections of light from the scales of the cortex. 
There appears to be much greater variety in the colors of domesticated animals than in 
wild ones,* and some are of opinion that, in regard to the wild ones, those which are inca- 
pable of being tamed, retain always the same color and markings. 
Female domestic cats often have hair of three colors, but the males are limited to dwo. 
When an animal has two distinctly colored hairs, it is found, as a general rule, that. the 
darkest is above and the lightest below; but the badger (meles) is an exception, for he 
has grey above and black below. 
OF CHANGES IN THE COLOR OF Pins, AT TIMES OTHER THAN PUBERTY. 
“Can the leopard change his spots ?”—Jer. 13: 23 
M. Destress reports the following singular case: “ A young lady (only 13 years of age) 
who had never suffered except from temporary pains in the head, in the winter of 1817-18, 
discovered that many places on her head were becoming bald, and in six months she had 
not a single hair. In the month of January, 1819, there appeared upon the part of the 
scalp, which first became bald, a sort of back wool, the rest had brown hair. A part of 
this new intecument fell out when it became two or three inches long; the rest changed 
[lost its ] eer at a distance greater or less from the point, becoming chestnut in the 
remaining part.” The account continues with the remark that, ‘it was strange to see a 
hair half white and half chestnut!’ (Dict. des Sci. Med., v. 43, p. 502.) 
The above report is too imperfect to afford much light to science. ‘A sort of black 
wool.” We should have been informed what sort. It might have been downy hairs. 
From the age, and a part of the new hair falling out, and the rest losing its color, we 
would attribute the phenomenon to the changes of puberty. 
* Livingston says that the wild ones wear an unvaried uniform, with now and then such an exception as to afford a hint 
to man of the means of grafting a permanent change upon accidental variations. (Essay upon Sheep.) 
Van Amringe says that the California and South American wild ox and wild horse hides, have less variety of color than 
our domestic ones. 
