36 THE INFANCY OF ANIMALS 



If the rule of ancestral liveries holds good here, if the 

 coloration of these young is to be regarded as reminiscent 

 of the liveries of their forbears — and this rule certainly 

 holds good in the majority of animals — then, it would 

 seem, we must regard all the species of seals which have 

 white young to-day as species which have emerged from 

 a white phase of coloration such as is common to both 

 young and adult stages of the polar bear, for example. 

 This of course may actually have been the case : but if so 

 it constitutes a very remarkable phenomenon, inasmuch as 

 pure white liveries are always regarded as having been, so 

 to speak, purged of pigment, and consequently indicating 

 the final term in the evolution of coloration. 



The solution of the riddle seems to have been made by 

 Mr. Alex Rogers, the Curator of the Perth Museum, who 

 remarks, " The white colour of the young seal may of 

 course be ascribed to protective resemblance . . . and, as 

 a matter of fact, I have seen several men pass quite close 

 to the ' white coat ' (young seal) lying on the ice without 

 seeing it." But, he remarks, the only enemy of the 

 young seal ... is the Polar bear, and this he does not 

 regard as numerous enough to have enforced a need for 

 protective coloration. He suggests, then, another inter- 

 pretation. " The heat of the sun on the ice is intense. 

 The old seals can usually protect themselves from this 

 by a frequent bath ; the young, however, do not take to 

 the water during the first twenty-four days. Now when 

 it happens that a pack of old seals and young are trapped 

 on the ice — a frequent occurrence — by what is known as 

 a ' jam,' thus leaving no air-holes for them to reach the 

 water, the old ones become what is termed by sealers, 

 ' burned skins.' 



" The skin becomes parched and dry, and strips off in 



