146 CLASS AVES. 



The whiteness of the plumage in birds, as well as of the 

 hair in quadrupeds, has frequently given rise to serious errors. 

 There is no doubt that the cold of the Arctic Regions must 

 exercise a most powerful influence over all the productions of 

 nature, for it acts in contradiction to the development of gene- 

 ration : plants themselves experience this influence, and are 

 stunted in their growth, and the stature of man is curtailed, 

 under the empire of the polar winter. Animals are also 

 found in those countries, whose principal livery is a pure 

 white, and this colour is spread in greater abundance there, 

 over the plumage of birds, than elsewhere. But the greater 

 portion of the quadrupeds and birds of those climates, pre- 

 serve this white livery only during the winter season. The 

 hare, the ermine, the rat, and other quadrupeds, resume, in 

 summer, their ordinary colours, such as we see them invested 

 with in the temperate zones. There are, in fact, few quadru- 

 peds that are constantly and totally white — none, perhaps, with 

 the exception of the ferret, and the Polar bear. The case is 

 pretty nearly the same with birds. Most of them change 

 their livery at the approach of summer. The species of 

 lagopus are white in winter only, and even in that season they 

 preserve their tail, composed of black quills. Many other 

 birds of the Arctic Pole have the major part of their plumage 

 of a pure white; which certainly proves, that the white colour, 

 extended principally among the animals which inhabit these 

 countries, is peculiar to the glacial climate; just as the 

 brilliant colours, with which we see tropical animals invested, 

 may be considered as proper to the torrid regions, and pro- 

 duced by the influence of an ardent sun. But this does not 

 prove that a bird, aboriginal of the countries under the torrid 

 zone, and invested with the richest colours, should lose all 

 impression of them by the mere influence of a cold climate. 

 Indeed it appears most evident that the peacock never exists 

 in a wild state in any northern country. An inhabitant of 



