A female of unknown age, in white winter pelage, captured 4 miles southeast of Tahoe City, California, and kept there until April 3, 1937, on which date it was brought to Berkeley, California, molted to brown in the spring. The first signs of the brown coat were noted on April 14. On May 24 or 25 she gave birth to 4 young which lived less than ten days. In the following winter this animal acquired a white coat. As previously noted, weasels native to the Berkeley area, where this female was kept, have brown coats in winter.
The weasels were in every instance kept in cages out-of-doors. The sides of the cages were open to the elements. A nest box in each cage provided shelter. All were of the species _Mustela frenata_.
The significant results, it seemed to me, were that the winter coat was the kind found in the area where the weasel originated instead of the kind found in weasels native to the areas in which the specimens were held in captivity.
That the time of molt is determined by the amount of light has clearly been shown by Bissonnette (1944:223) for American weasels of the two species _Mustela erminea_ and _M. frenata_. In his words (_op. cit._:246) "Reducing the daily periods of light induced molting and regrowth of new fur. . . . In the Bonaparte weasels [_Mustela erminea_], white replaced brown. . . . Increasing daily light-periods caused molting and change to dark brown. . . . Incomplete molts in both directions (toward white or toward brown) were produced as a result of early reversal of increase or decrease of daily light-time. . . . That this stimulus is received through the eyes and acts through the anterior pituitary gland is indicated by Bissonnette's [1935:159] studies on ferrets, a nearly related animal. That the thyroids and sex-glands are not essential is at least suggested . . . by Lyman's (1942) study on the varying hare [_Lepus americanus_]." It can be added that Lyman (1943:451) demonstrated in _Lepus americanus_ that the effect of light is received through the eyes. He demonstrated this by masking the animals. To Wright (1942B:109) who studied the two American weasels, _M. erminea_ and _M. frenata_, it seemed likely that the pituitary produced or released gonadotropic hormone at about the time of the spring molt and that this molt and the spring changes in the reproductive tracts of the weasels might be caused by a stimulus from a common source. Later, Wright (1950:130) injected a gonadotropic hormone into long-tailed weasels which had recently acquired their white winter pelage and thereby caused them to lose the white pelage and acquire the brown pelage. It is Lyman (1943:450) who says, in relation to _Lepus americanus_, "When in the physiologically white condition, the melanoblasts of the regenerating guard-and pile-hair follicles contain no melanin-forming enzyme (dopa-oxidase), which may be the reason for the lack of pigment." Schwalbe (1893) by sectioning the skin and microscopically examining the hair-follicles of _M. erminea_ learned that the basal cells producing hairs lacked pigment granules in autumn when the European ermine (_M. erminea_) was acquiring its white winter coat and that the cells contained granules of pigment in spring when, as we know, the granules are incorporated in the growing hair and give it its color.