188 
(Lepus Americanus) “keeps his winter coat till May, when 
it is gradually shed, the change being complete in June. 
The winter coat gradually develops in October and 
November, and is retained from December till the end of 
April.”* “The snow-bunting is whiter at one season of the 
year than at the other, but curiously enough the change is 
precisely the reverse of what one would expect. It is 
whiter in summer instead of in winter.”f Moreover the 
habits of animals are not such as the theory requires. 
“The alpine, mountain, or northern hare Lepus alpinus (variabilis) 
takes the place of the common hare in the Alps and the Arctic 
regions. Its winter coat is perfectly white, except the tips of the ears, 
which are black. This animal confines itself principally to the zone 
between the trees and the limit of perpetual snow ; but in winter it 
betakes itself to the woods.”—(Vogt and Specht. The Natural 
History of Animals. Mammalia, vol. ii., p. 174.) 
In other words, it does not occupy that position in which 
its colour would afford the best protection. There is, 
furthermore, as Karl Semper has pointed out, the difficulty 
of understanding how this change could have been brought 
about gradually through the means of Natural Selection. 
“ It is difficult to understand how a race of brown animals can be 
gradually transformed by selection into a variety which always turns 
snow-white in winter. Granting that a brown weasel could, by any 
external or internal cause, be changed during the winter into a brown 
and white spotted one, this weasel would not have the smallest 
advantage over the brown one in consequence of the white mixture 
in its fur, for it would be quite as conspicuous as a plain brown one in 
the pure white of the snow, perhaps even more so. That a white 
variety should arise from a gradual increase of the white patches in 
the piebald fur is not to be thought of. It might indeed be possible 
that a selection should be effected, if a pure white variety were at 
once and from the first produced from the animals which first 
exhibited this modification of their summer colouring, since these, 
like the nearly white ones, would in fact enjoy an essential advantage 
over the brown or spotted ones.”—(.Animal Life. p. 116.) 
* Poulton. The Colours of Animals, p. gp. 
t Beddard. Animal Coloration, p. 7/.