306 LEPORID^E— LEPUS 



In the extreme north adult hares are white all the year round 

 without variation, the young alone showing traces of a pig- 

 mented coat {e.g., in the Greenland Hare, Feilden in Nares's 

 Polar Voyage, 1878, ii., 204). In countries where the assumption 

 of a white coat is invariable but seasonable, the length of time 

 for which it is worn is more or less rigidly marked out by 

 long custom apart from the influence of the weather, which 

 cannot greatly retard or hasten the normal sequence of events. 

 Animals captured in such conditions and placed in the shelter 

 of confinement still whiten if they have been accustomed to do 

 so while at liberty, as they do also if removed to a more 

 southern locality, or even, it is said, if kept in heated apart- 

 ments (Bingley) ; the latter point would, however, seem to 

 require confirmation. 



In temperate countries, as Britain, where the process is either 

 not invariable or frequently incomplete, it is very subject to 

 climatic as well as to other influences, such as sex, age, health ; 

 and the result is much variability. In Wexford an individual 

 may be found assuming the white coat in December, and 

 another moulting back to the summer pelage in January. 

 The effect of severe cold in Britain may possibly be observ- 

 able in the increased whitening which is said to ensue in the 

 subsequent winter, even if it be a mild one. 



It is not known how long transported individuals and their 

 descendants will continue to change in a milder climate ; Irish 

 and Scottish specimens imported to Mull are said to retain 

 their respective whitening characteristics, but exact details are 

 lacking. The Norwegian hares mentioned above on page 294 

 as having been introduced into the Faroe Islands are said, 

 with very few blue-grey exceptions, to have whitened regularly 

 at first. Gradually, however, the grey individuals became 

 more numerous and the white scarcer, until, in i860, out of one 

 hundred shot only five or six were white, the others being 

 bluish grey. Thus, in less than forty years the winter coat 

 had changed its character. 



