354 



THE NATURE BOOK 



white fur about him. The hghter portions 

 of his body ha\e a primrose, even a 

 sulphur tint. The seasonal whitening 

 proceeds from his belly upwards, the last 

 portions to change being in order, the 

 ridge of his back, the crown of his head, 

 and a brown ring round each eye* It 

 is noticeable that these portions have 

 little, if any, fat underlying them, and it 

 has been suggested that the vital energy 



Compare with the adult animal in similar attitude on 

 the opposite page. 



which in summer is expended in the for- 

 mation of pigment, is in winter diverted 

 to the formation of fat, or to the pro- 

 duction of a thicker growth of unpigmented 

 fur. 



The change, that is. is due to a sluggish 

 metabolism, with deficient oxidation and 

 consequent fatty degeneration — almost a 

 case of ana,'mia. This necessitates the 

 assumption that the pigment is directly 

 derived from the colouring matter of the 

 blood. In the light of modern research, 

 it seems more reasonable to suppose that 

 the effect of cold, and perhaps gloom, 

 on animals which whiten in winter, is 

 httle more than skin-deep. Pigmentation 

 is now supposed to be due t(j the act of 

 a ferment on a proteid (t3'rosin) in the 

 epidermal cells, and, if this supposition ])e 

 correct, it is not improbable that a climatic 

 change to cold and gloomy conditions 

 * O. V. Apliu, Zoologist, May, 1898. 



would check the fermentation. Whether 

 this would result in a blanching of the 

 existent hair, or a growth of new white 

 hair, would depend on the more or less 

 forward condition of the fur when sunless 

 cold set in, and on the degree and 

 continuity of the sunless cold to which 

 the skin beneath it was exposed. I lia\'e 

 had no experience of Stoats whitening in 

 capti\'ity, but so far as the moult is con- 

 cerned I have found that all our Weasels 

 shed their coats copiously in May and 

 June, and that from about that time the 

 winter coat is gradually acquired. I 

 ha\-e not been able to distinguish any 

 marked growth of fresh hair in late 

 autumn. 



The Stoat and Weasel are the most 

 familiar of our Mustelines, and I propose 

 in this first instalment of my article to 

 confine myself to them. To begin with, 

 I would invite the reader's attention to 

 their beauty of form, and I have little 

 doubt that this beauty will come to many 

 as a surprise. The glimpses which one 

 obtains of a Stoat, or ^^'easel, at large are 

 generally of but momentary duration, 

 while the conception to be derived from 

 dead specimens, whether gibbeted on the 

 keeper's tree or mounted in the museum, 

 is seldom even approximate to the truth. 

 It is due, nevertheless, to such a concep- 

 tion that the peculiarly sinuous, hthe 

 body, the graceful mobile neck, the short 

 but finely balanced limbs, have been 

 described as " vermiform " ; that the 

 animals themselves have been contemp- 

 tuously and ignorantly classed as vermin ; 

 and that the very words Stoat and Weasel 

 have gradually acquired a sinister mean- 

 ing. From a predatory point of \-iew 

 there is little to choose between the 

 Stoat and his human enemies ; while from 

 a purely sporting point of \-iew the balance 

 is somewhat in favour of the Stoat. 

 " Stoat," or " Stot " in its original mean- 

 ing, almost certainly denotes " stout " 

 or "bold," while "Weasel," which is 

 found in most Germanic languages, may 

 possibly have the same origin as the 

 Swabian wuscln, which means "to skip 

 about." 



Playfulness is a marked characteristic 

 of both animals. I hax^e watched a Weasel 

 skii)ping backwards and forwards across 

 a water-course, for no other reason which 



