. Cassell's natural history. Animals; Animal behavior. TBE POLECAT. 189 change may take place in eithei way. Some of liis specimens, "notably those taken in spring, show the long woolly white coat of winter in most places, and in others present patches—generally a streak along tha back—of shorter, coarser, tliinner hair, evidently of the new spring coat, wholly dark-bi-own. Other specimens, notably autnniiial ones, denionsti'ate the tinning to white of existing hairs, these being white at the roots for a varying distance, and tipped with brown. These are simple facts not open to question.
. Cassell's natural history. Animals; Animal behavior. TBE POLECAT. 189 change may take place in eithei way. Some of liis specimens, "notably those taken in spring, show the long woolly white coat of winter in most places, and in others present patches—generally a streak along tha back—of shorter, coarser, tliinner hair, evidently of the new spring coat, wholly dark-bi-own. Other specimens, notably autnniiial ones, denionsti'ate the tinning to white of existing hairs, these being white at the roots for a varying distance, and tipped with brown. These are simple facts not open to question. We may safely conclude that if the requisite temjwrature be experienced at the periods of renewal of the coat, the new hairs will come out of the opposite colour; if not, they will appear of the same colour, and afterwards change; that is, the change may or may not be coincident with shedding. That it ordinarily is not so coincident seems shown by the greater number of specimens in which we obser\-e white hairs brown-tipped. As Mv. Bell ccjuttiuls. temperature is the immediate controlling agent. This is amply proven in the fact that tlif iioi tlu-rii animals always change ; that in those from intermediate latitudes the change is incomj)lete, while llmsr from farther south do not change at ; The advantage of the change to the animal is manifest; its colour becomes that of the snow over which. WEASEL (1) AND ERMINE (2) IX THEIR WINTER ()TllIN(i. it travels in pursuit of game, so that it is less easily seen avoided. I'ufortunately for it, however, a siraihu- "protective coloui-ing" is adopted son,.- its victims. The habits of the Stoat resemble those ..f the Weasel ; it is dangerous both to the sheep-f(5ld and to the poultry-yard, but partly atones for its poaching by the immense number of Rats and Mice it is capable of destroying. Audubon relates that he " once placed a half-domesticated Ermine in an out- house infested with Rats, shut
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