598 ME, BARRETT-HAMILTON ON LEPUS VARIABILIS. [May 16, 



Mr. G. E. H. Barrett-Hamiltou, F.Z.S., exhibited a sidu of 

 the AT'arying Hare {Lepus variabilis) from Nairn, Scotland, for 

 which he was indebted to the courtesy of the Earl of Cawdor. The 

 skin was in the interesting moulticg-stage of spi'ing, and clearly 

 showed that the darker colour of summer was due to the casting 

 off of the white hairs of winter and their replacement by a new 

 set of hairs of the dark summer colour. Mr. Barrett-Hamilton 

 was therefore glad to be able to corroborate the observations of 

 Mr. J. A. Allen ' on the American White Hare {Lepus americamis 

 ErxL), at least so far as concerned the spring change of colour. 

 Mr. Allen's paper had been written partly with a view to combat 

 the view, which once widely held, that the change of colour in the 

 Varying Hare was due, at least in part, to an actual change of the 

 liigment of the hairs, which theory had been advocated in an 

 elaborate paper by Assistant- Surgeon F. H. Welch '\ and had been 

 largely utihzed by no less an authority than Mr. E. B. Poulton 

 as the chief basis for his theory on the "Variable Protective 

 E-esemblances in Vertebrates " ^ 



Another point of interest was the late date at which the spring 

 moult takes place (the Hare in question was received early in 

 May). The date of the spring moult in the more southern 

 countries inhabited by the Variable Hare, such as the South of 

 Ireland, was no earlier, so that the spring change at all events was 

 apparently unaffected by climatic conditions, although in the south 

 the amount of whiteness assumed was very much less than in the 

 north. 



The whole seasonal change in fact seemed to be normally quite 

 out of control of the animal, and also, it seemed, not subject to 

 the direct influence of the weather (at least not to such changes of 

 temperature as might be experienced in different parts of the British 

 Isles), the experiments of Captain Eoss * on a Hudson's Bay 

 Lemming notwithstanding ; and Mr. Barrett-Hamilton was aware 

 of se\'eral instances in which Variable Hares transported from 

 Scotland and from Irish mountains to southern and low-lying 

 regions continued for some seasons to appear in their northern garb 

 of snowy whiteness. This persistence of the habit of turning 

 white, even in unsuitable conditions, together with the lateness of 

 the moult, resulted frequently in the curious spectacle of a mountniu 

 Hare running about in all its conspicuous arctic livery under 

 the bright rays of an April or May sun. After a few years 

 such imported Hares, or more j)robably their offspring, ceased to 

 tiu-n completely white, and the breed assumed the appearance of 

 the ordinary Hares of the southern locality to which they had been 

 transported. The persistence of this change even under unsuitable 

 conditions, together with the lateness of the spring moult (owing to 



1 " On the Seasonal Change of Colour in the Varying Hare {Lepus americamis 

 Er\l.)." Bull. Aiuer. Mus. Nat. Hist. vol. vi. art. iv. pp. 107-128, May 7, 1894. 



- P. Z.S., 1869, pp. 228-236. 



^ See ' The Colours of Animals,' chap. vii. Intern. Sci. Ser. vol. Ixvii. 1890. 



* See Appendix to Second Voyage, p. xiv (1835), and ' Bell's British Quadru- 

 peds,' ed. i. p. 199 (1874). 



