282 AUTUMN AND WINTER 



the mildness or severity of each individual season has a 

 powerful effect in deciding whether these little creatures 

 shall be plain stoats in winter or ermines. White or partly 

 white specimens are much commoner in hard winters than 

 in mild ones. Even weasels occasionally become partly 

 white in spells of frost and snow ; but no cold weather can 

 change a weasel into an ermine, because the weasel has no 

 black tuft on its tail, and therefore lacks the ermine's essential 

 feature. To the gamekeeper stoats are always vermin, 

 whether they are ermines or not ; and it might be thought 

 that the two words are really the same. But the resemblance 

 comes by chance; ermine is the English form of an old 

 name for several such small fur-bearing beasts, while vermin 

 is derived from the Latin vermis, a worm, and came to be 

 applied to small unpleasant creatures in general. 



The only other British quadruped which turns white in 

 winter is the mountain hare. This is a northern and Alpine 

 species, which spreads as far south as Scotland and Ireland, 

 but is not found in England. In summer it is grey, and it 

 is therefore often known as the grey or blue hare ; but in 

 winter it turns pure white, except for the black tips to the 

 ears. In Ireland it keeps its grey coat all the year round ; 

 and this is very illustrative of the position of our islands 

 just on the boundary-line of these winter changes proper 

 to a severe northern climate. It haunts the mountains 

 and high moors in summer, but descends to the lower 

 slopes in winter, like the grouse and deer which share 

 its home. As with the stoat, the character of the weather 

 has a powerful influence on its change of colour. In mild 

 autumns it changes much later than in cold ones. 



In Britain we have no Polar bears or white snow-foxes 

 to help make up a really representative Arctic fauna ; but 

 the summits of some of the highest Scottish mountains still 



