FRAGMENTS. 389 



ginally been imported, which may have partially extended 

 their ramifications. Most sportsmen will have observed 

 something of the same kind when rabbit-shooting ; a black 

 fellow suddenly starting tip amidst multitudes of the com- 

 mon grey. I recollect once seeing, in the middle of a 

 populous rabbit-warren, four very young black ones, the 

 only sable inhabitants of the colony. I have often watched 

 them from a tree, and noted that they always kept close 

 together, and frequented the same hole. No doubt they 

 were of the same litter. 



Quite distinct from the above is the Albino, several 

 examples of which variety I inserted in the Edinburgh 

 Evening Courant of January 15, 1849. I select the two fol- 

 lowing, as being particularly curious. " A cream-coloured 

 hart is now roaming Lord Breadalbane's celebrated forest, 

 the Black Mount. But perhaps the most interesting of 

 these l lusus ' is a beautiful roe of the purest white, which 

 haunts the tangled copses of Craig-an-James, on the banks 

 of Loch Lomond. This fairy-like creature, so harmonising 

 with the romantic district it frequents, was first observed 

 last spring, when a fawn, by the keepers of Sir James 

 Colquhoun of that Ilk, on whose property it is. Its eyes 

 are red, and, what is very remarkable, it does not vary its 

 colour according to the season. This is the more unac- 

 countable, as the roe always ehanges the chestnut red of 

 summer for the dark mouse-colour of winter. This winter 

 dress prevents the animal from being readily seen, when 

 the coverts are thin and bare and the trees stript of their 

 leaves, and is one among the thousand provisions for these 



