LITTLE BEASTS OF FIELD AND WOOD 



rapidity, for it was already about as long as it ever 

 would be. 



In fact, I am not yet fully convinced that it 

 was new fur, but rather the old under-fur of the 

 last winter turned brown, and that only the long 

 over-hair is shed in the spring. The more 

 carefully I examined the fur of the specimen 

 before me, the more I was persuaded that this 

 was actually the case, and that the ermine habit- 

 ually goes about with only its under-fur on dur- 

 ing the spring and early summer, and that this is 

 shed late in the summer, to give place to a new 

 coat of short hair, which grows longer and is 

 re-enforced by thick under-fur in the autumn ; 

 while the whole turns white in November, 

 through some inexplicable process which works 

 alike with weasel and northern hare and ptarmi- 

 gan, while the coats of other animals remain prac- 

 tically unchanged as far as colour is concerned. 



The nursery where the young weasels are 

 raised is, in most instances, beneath a stump, or 



94 



