20 



Winter Fauna of Mount Marcy. 



feet above the sea, associated with the ptarmigan and 

 coney. Here, as among the snowy peaks of Colorado, I 

 observed that while in the cold upper regions of ice and 

 snow the hare had changed in color to its white winter 

 coat, in the lowlands to which the snow had not yet 

 reached they were still brown or mottled w^hite and 

 brown, indicating that they do not move from their locali- 

 ties with the coming of winter, and that climate controls 

 the changing of their color. It may be possible that the 

 polar hare, Lepus glacialis of Leach, has a home upon our 

 high peaks, but this is as yet undetermined. 



The common red squirrel, Sciurus hudsonicus, we found 

 at an altitude of about 4,000 feet, increasing in abundance 

 with decrease of altitude. The trails indicated that it was 

 pursued and preyed upon by the sable. This sqairrel here 

 feeds on the seeds of the black spruce. 



While engaged in trigonometrical work on the marsh, at 

 the head of Lake Tear, from which during a thaw the 

 snow had entirely disappeared, the guide's dog, which had 

 been digging furiously for some time in the deep peat 

 moss, suddenly drove from its burrow a good sized animal 

 of the rat kind, resembling in size and color the star-nosed 

 mole. Its rapid disappearance in some other hiding place 

 prevented more than a brief glimpse of it. There was, 

 however, a suggestion of resemblance to one of the geo- 

 mys or sand rats. In color it was dark blue or gray-black, 

 audits length in the neighborhood of six inches. The 

 soil in which it burrowed was (below the moss and peat) 

 a coarse sand and fine gravel. The food of the animal is 

 probably vegetable, the roots reached by its burrows. 



Tracks of deer-mice were observed on the slopes of the 

 mountain at all elevations not exceeding about four thou- 

 sand feet; and, occasionally the minute trail of a small 

 shrew, supposed to be the Sor^ex fosieri, or Forster's shrew. 

 I noticed in many places where, as described by Richard- 

 son, it would leave the surface of the snow by descending 



