COLOURS AND PATTERNS OF MAMMALS %7 



The many families of small carnivores, such as raccoons, pandas, 

 coatis, martens, polecats, weasels, gluttons and skunks, ratels, 

 badgers and otters, have generally brilliantly marked fur, with ringed 

 tails, striped bodies, or conspicuous marks on the head or body ; 

 nearly all of them have an autumn and a spring moult, and there are 

 many cases where the pelage of summer and winter is notably differ- 

 ent, in colour as well as in quality. The young are born in holes or 

 nests, usually in an imperfect condition, nearly always blind, and 

 sometimes naked, as in the polecats and mink. Even if they are 

 born with fur, the first coat is fine and silky, very often white in 

 colour, and this towards the end of the autumn is gradually replaced 

 by a rough puppy coat which persists until the spring moult. It is 

 possible that the light colour of the first coat may make the animals 

 more visible to the mother in the dark holes or nests where they are 

 born. They are born in an immature condition partly because the 

 mothers have to catch their prey by agihty and would have difficulty 

 in obtaining a living when heavy with young. 



The seals are probably terrestrial carnivores which have taken to 

 living in the water, although they come ashore to breed. The 

 young are born covered with hair and in a weU-developed condition. 

 The young of the eared seals, which include the fur seals, sea-lions 

 and sea-bears, are able to swim in an hour or two after their birth, and 

 the first coat is thick but sUky and in almost every case very much 

 darker than the pelage of the adults. The young of the true seals, 

 which have no external ears and in which the hind-legs are turned 

 backwards and dragged after the body on land, instead of being used 

 for progression, show a curious reluctance to take to the water, and 

 may spend weeks on shore. They are born with a white and silky 

 coat which is shed very quickly, and replaced by a longer and more 

 woolly puppy coat. In the grey seal famihar on the wilder parts 

 of the coast of Great Britain, the young are at first pure white, with 

 silky hair, but in a few days this coat becomes yellower and woolly, 

 partly by the growth of new hairs ; in about six weeks this infantile 

 coat is moulted off and replaced by a shorter and thicker coat of 

 particolour, yellow mottled with grey and black. In about seven 

 months there is a second moult and the third pelage resembles that 

 of the adult, but this may not be fully attained until after another 

 moult. The colours of the adult vary much, and there seems to be 

 no special meaning in the changes at the successive moults. 



The young of all the ruminating Ungulate animals are born in an 

 advanced condition, audit is by far the most usual case for the pelage 



