To Survive, These Animals Must Lose Their Camouflage
On December 4, 1920, a 14-year-old boy saw something extraordinary while walking in the central Wisconsin woods.
Snowshoe hares, all of them with vibrant white fur, “were hopping about on fallen leaves that had no snow covering,” he wrote. “The month was unusually mild, with practically no snow until the middle of the period.” It was like a vision: The animals almost glowed against the sullen, early-winter soil.
The sight so stuck with him that he described it in a scientific paper 13 years later. By that time, Wallace Byron Grange had demonstrated an intelligence, a precociousness, and a flair for prose style that matched his middle name. At 22, he had been appointed Wisconsin’s first-ever game commissioner; now, at 27, he was a publishing zoologist as well. He was particularly fascinated by snowshoe hares—and their mysterious annual change of costume.
Most snowshoe hares start the year with white coats. They “[hop] stealthily over the crust and loose snow, almost like some phantom creature, rendered relatively
