I 2 



Introductory 



hairs to obtain some length before their predecessors are gone. Indeed, 

 the old coat does not in fact drop off, as in ordinary cases, but is torn away 

 in large patches, by contact with the shrubbery." A precisely similar 

 process is observed in the shedding of the coat of the American bison. 

 W hen the process of changing is a slow one, in many species the red coat 

 of summer may be seen showing through the gray one of winter, or vice 

 versa, giving to the animal a curiously mixed type of coloration. Not only 

 is the summer coat generally finer than that of winter, but in many species 

 the hairs themselves are different in structure, being thin, straight, and 

 compact, instead of thick, waved, and more or less pithy. In the deer of 

 temperate and cold climates the summer coat is frequently retained for a 

 very short period, often not more than three months, or even less. 



Judging from the number of species which are spotted, either per- 

 manently or during the period that they are in summer pelage, and likewise 

 from the still more frequent occurrence of white spots in the pelage of the 

 rawns, as well as from the circumstance that the young of so many other 

 Ungulates are either spotted or striped with white, it may be inferred that 

 spotting was the original type of coloration in all the members of the group. 

 And as such spotting is generally associated with a ground-colour of some 

 shade of tawny or reddish, it may further be inferred that the same tints 

 characterised the ancestral forms. As a rule, those species which are per- 

 manently spotted, such as the Indian chital, show but little change of colour 

 between the summer and winter coats ; but in all the species which are 

 spotted only in summer, and in many of those which are uniformly coloured 

 at all seasons of the year, the summer coat retains the original fawn or 

 reddish tint, whereas the winter pelage tends to some shade of gray or dark 

 brown. In the former condition, as is well exemplified by the case of the 

 Virginian deer, the animal is said by hunters to be in the red, and in the 

 latter in the blue. 



It is thus evident that in such species as show a marked difference between 

 the colour of the summer and winter pelage, it is the red summer coat that 

 retains the ancestral type of coloration, and that the gray or brown winter 

 coat is an acquired character of comparatively late development. And it is 

 obvious that those species, like the Japanese sika, in which the summer 

 coat is spotted, are one stage nearer the original type than those, like the 

 Virginian deer, in which the coloration is uniform at all seasons. A further 



