SIZE.—Head and body, about 10 inches; tail, 4½ inches.
This is about the best known in a general way from its fur being used as part of the insignia of royalty. The fur however only becomes valuable after it has completed its winter change. How this is done was for a long time a subject of speculation and inquiry. It is, however, now proved that it is according to season that the mode of alteration is effected. In spring the new hairs are brown, replacing the white ones of winter; in autumn the existing brown hairs turn white. Mr. Bell, who gave the subject his careful consideration, says that in Ross's first Polar expedition, a Hudson's Bay lemming (Myodes) was exposed in its summer coat to a temperature of 30° below zero. Next morning the fur on the cheeks and a patch on each shoulder had become perfectly white; at the end of the week the winter change was complete, with the exception of a dark band across the shoulder and a dorsal stripe.
Hodgson remarks that the Ermine is common in Thibet, where the skins enter largely into the peltry trade with China.
In one year 187,000 skins were imported into England.
[NO. 184. MUSTELA (VISON: Gray) CANIGULA.]
The Hoary Red-necked Weasel.
HABITAT.—Nepal hills, Thibet.
DESCRIPTION.—Pale reddish-brown, scarcely paler beneath; face, chin, throat, sides of neck and chest white; tail half as long as body and head, concolorous with the back; feet whitish. Sometimes chest brown and white mottled, according to Gray. Hodgson, who discovered the animal, writes: "Colour throughout cinnamon red without black tip to the tail, but the chaffron and entire head and neck below hoary."
SIZE.—15½ inches; tail without hair 7½ inches, with hair 9½ inches.
[NO. 185. MUSTELA STOLICZKANA.]
HABITAT.—Yarkand.