106 COLOTJE CHANGES IN CORNISH STOATS. 



A few words on the effect of cold and snow on animals in 

 boreal regions may not be out of place here, as the stoats are 

 generally distributed throughout Arctic Europe, Asia, and 

 America. In Arctic areas many animals remain white through- 

 out the year, such as the Polar bear, American polar hare ; 

 others turn white in winter as the Arctic hare, Arctic fox, and 

 Ermine. The permanently white forms live amongst the constant 

 snows, the others in summer live in regions which are free from 

 snow. Here colour is seen to be secretive. Records are 

 plentiful of brown coloured stoats in our Cornish winters, and I 

 have seen both weasels and stoats in their summer dress in 

 mid-winter in Swaledale and other exposed localities. 



Mr. Wallace in his delightful work on "Darwinism," says 

 " whenever we find Arctic animals which, from whatever cause, 

 do not require protection by the white colour, then neither the 

 cold nor the snow-glare has any effect upon their colouration." 

 In spite of odd exceptions snow and coldness have an effect on 

 our Cornish stoats. With us, in all probability, the white 

 specimens occur only when heavy snows are on the ground, a 

 time of snow and coldness. Mr. Elliott Coues in his 'monograph 

 on " Fur-bearing Animals," says "if the requisite temperature 

 be experienced at the periods of renewal of the coat, the new 

 hairs will come out of the opposite colour, that is the change 

 may or may not be coincident with shedding." It is clear then 

 that in snowy regions, should the cold persist, a prolongation 

 of winter seem imminent, the white coat and not the brown is 

 renewed. 



A glance at our Museum specimens shews that the alter- 

 ations in colour may be due to a change of the hair from brown 

 to white, or a renewal of the brown hairs by white ones. 



When we come to think these facts over, we shall see, I feel 

 certain, that the colour variations in our Cornish stoats are more 

 than commonplace. Remembering that the stoats universally 

 and regularly change their coats in Arctic regions, in less colder 

 areas only at certain odd times, and in still warmer places never 

 changing them at all, it would seem that this odd and uncertain 

 colour display points to ancestral characters. The varying 

 dress refers us back to a time when the Stoats were more closely 



