220 THE HAUNTS OF LIFE 



suit of grey and brown, puts on a white plum- 

 age when the winter sets in; and the chestnut- 

 brown stoat becomes the white ermine snow- 

 white all over save the black tip of the tail. 

 Now this white dress gives its possessor a gar- 

 ment of invisibility against a background of 

 snow, enabling it to slink upon its victims and 

 to elude its enemies. But there is something 

 more perhaps more important. For a warm- 

 blooded animal in very cold surroundings the 

 dress that loses least of the precious "animal 

 heat" of the body the heat that makes it 

 easier for the chemical process of the body 

 to go on is a 'white dress. 



We must not follow this subject further, but 

 it is interesting to think out some of the other 

 ways in which land animals meet the difficul- 

 ties of the winter. What are the expedients 

 adopted by moles, by harvest-mice, by the 

 mountain hare, by squirrels, by the curlews 

 on the moor, by the slow-worms, by the frogs? 



BETWIXT-AND-BETWEEN ANIMALS 



Of great interest are the betwixt-and-between 

 animals, at present making the transition be- 

 tween water and dry land. On many tropical 



