THE COMMON OR BROWN HARE 261 



Of the five toes on the fore feet the central is the longest, the thumb 

 shortest and very small, but carrying a strong nail. The second, 

 fourth, and fifth are intermediate in size in the order named. All 

 digits carry strong claws. With the exception of insignificant tracts 

 (figured by Boas, Zool. Anzeiger, xxxv., 15th February 1910, 442-443), 

 the palmar and plantar surfaces are completely, and, according to the 

 season, more or less heavily clothed with fur, which conceals the terminal 

 pads of the digits and three rudimentary pads lying at their bases. 



Newly born leverets have very short ears and a less furry tail 

 than adults, which they soon grow to resemble, but are less thickly 

 furred on the under side, and lack the ruddy tints of the chest and back, 

 as well as the extra long hairs. There does not seem to be any con- 

 spicuous juvenal or post-juvenal coat. 



According to the older sporting books, bucks appear to be smaller 

 in the body than does, shorter in the head, whiter on the rump, redder 

 on the shoulders, and greyer on the ears. The first, second, and fourth 

 items are certainly correct ; the others require further investigation. 



The principal moult is effected in the late summer or early autumn, 

 between July and early October (latest examined, 5th October). The 

 fur of the back may come off altogether. The new hairs are then seen 

 short and black without whitish bases or ochraceous tips, so as to 

 be very conspicuous. The ochraceous tips appear as the hairs 

 grow ; later the whitish base. There seems to be a gradual change of 

 coat in late winter or spring ; Cocks {in lit.) has examined specimens 

 in which the hairs were loose and the coat of the upper side not yet 

 renewed on nth February, and again in the last weeks of May and 

 August ; and Drane finds the fur of tame individuals in a continuous 

 state of change throughout the year. 



White facial marks are by some considered an indication of age, 

 appearing in captive individuals at about the sixth year (Drane, MS., 

 per Proger) ; together with a grey rump and whiter tail and ears, they 

 are sometimes found in summer specimens which have not moulted 

 properly. But they are really characteristic of the winter coat, which 

 is whiter, but in a variable degree, than that of summer, so that no 

 doubt many of the pied or grey varieties noticed below under 

 individual variation are instances of incipient winter whitening. In 

 such cases the ochraceous bands of the hairs disappear and the black- 

 bands are reduced in breadth. Two specimens which seemed to have 

 undergone extensive whitening were reported from Dumfriesshire by 

 Gladstone {Ann. Scott. Nat. Hist., 1911, 113), on 20th December 1903, 

 and 27th December 1910. In one the legs were brown; the other was 

 " completely white, with only a suspicion of a brown hair here and there." 

 It is probable that individuals in more or less completely white winter 

 dress are obtained annually, especially in Scotland, and Masefield writes 



