THE BRITISH OR LIGHT-TAILED SQUIRREL 699 



They continue to grow until January, at which time they have attained 

 a length of about 35 mm. They afterwards become white and thin, 

 and, if they persist after July, are rendered conspicuous by their light 

 colour. 



The palms and soles are naked from April to November, but during 

 the latter month acquire a coat of short woolly hairs, thicker on the 

 soles than on the palms, which are sometimes more or less unclothed 

 even in winter. 



The remarkable cycle of moult and colour-changes indicated above, 

 although considered by Thomas, who first described them in detail 

 {Zoologist, 1896, 401), as "both in effect and complexity, quite 

 unparalleled throughout the mammals of the world," had previously 

 been neglected or misunderstood. Blyth^ probably came nearer to an 

 understanding of them than any other writer, and Macgillivray and 

 Alston {in Bell) had a rough notion of a regular sequence, but the 

 majority of naturalists were content to regard the cream or whitish tail 

 as an " accidental variety." Thomas's work was based on the study of 

 a series of Squirrels killed all the year round in a single wood at What- 

 combe, near Blandford, Dorsetshire, by Mansell-Pleydell ; and although 

 typical enough for British Squirrels generally, Thomas's calendar of 

 the changes must not be regarded as absolutely binding for those taken 

 in other parts of the country. A series procured for Barrett-Hamilton 

 at Saffron Walden, Essex, exhibits a greyer coloration in winter. 



Blyth {loc. cit.) states that in the case of the young of the first litters 

 the first pelage is that of winter, and this is corroborated by A. H. 

 Macpherson {Zoologist, 1886, dy), who twice found young in the nest 

 with bleached tails and ear-tufts, and by Aplin {Zoologist, 1885, 479). 

 According to Blyth, the pelage of young of the second litter is that of 

 summer, ear-tufts being absent. 



The immature are often redder than are adults. The tails, never 

 rufous in adult S. leucourus, are frequently so in young specimens, 

 which thus resemble adult .S. vulgaris rather than their own parents — 

 a circumstance which, as Thomas remarks, " would tend to show that 

 . . . the British Squirrels were formerly red-tailed when adult." 



Eagle Clarke, writing of three males and three females sent from 

 Ballindalloch, Spey, Scotland, on the 3rd March, states that the males 

 were greyer, the females slightly more rufous, especially on the flanks ; 

 but there is yet no evidence available indicating that this is the 

 case generally in 5. leucourus, although Gray {Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., 

 November 1867, 325) states that this is true of certain South African 

 Squirrels. 



Collett {Norges Pattedyr, 191 1, 217) has proved (from the examina- 

 tion of a long series collected in southern, central, and northern 



' Ed. White's Selborne, London, 1836, 280, 281, note. 



