406 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



length of the fur can be perceived ; but towards the end of 

 October another complete change of fur takes place, but one 

 which, owing to the very slight change of colour it involves, is 

 most difficult to observe, and has been hitherto quite overlooked. 

 The difficulty is also increased by the fur changing more uni- 

 formly all over the body, and not in the prominent patchy way 

 characteristic of the spring moult. The exact course of the 

 change, both for this reason and for want of specimens killed 

 just at the right moments, cannot be described in detail. 



The new coat, when fully up, is long and soft, and composed 

 of hairs which are inconspicuously annulated with brown and 

 dull white ; so that, though the general tone is, in Dorsetshire at 

 least, not so very unlike that of the summer coat, its constituents 

 are essentially distinct, for the rufous summer hairs are quite 

 unannulated. 



This difference in the constitution of the colours involves a 

 further interesting change, for while red (whether of summer 

 coat or of continental Squirrels' tail and ear-tufts) is not appa- 

 rently susceptible to bleaching, blackish brown (e. g. English 

 Squirrels' tails and ear-tufts) is strikingly so ; and we accordingly 

 find that the winter coat, with its blackish brown basis, bleaches 

 steadily throughout the winter, like the tail. As a result, in 

 February and March skins, the whole animal, from nose to tip of 

 tail (but not the rufous limbs), is bleached to one uniform dull 

 yellowish or drab tint. 



Then in May, while the tail goes on bleaching in the same 

 direction to white, the corresponding change in the body-coat is 

 arrested by the coat itself being abruptly changed for the new suit 

 of rufous. 



IV. Palms and Soles, 



The palms of the hands and soles of the feet are in summer 

 entirely naked, but about November they gradually become 

 clothed between and behind the pads with short woolly hairs, 

 which fall off again about April. The palms are on the whole 

 much less thickly clothed than the soles, and in some specimens 

 remain almost or quite unclothed through the winter. 



The following calendar of changes will show in what state 

 Squirrels maybe expected to be found at any given time; but 

 it cannot be too much insisted on that the whole of these 





