Evening star., 1947-01-29
This and That
Bu Charles E. TraceUeu.
FALLS CHURCH, Va.

rALbo Cf1OfLC1, Vd.
Dear Sir:
Some eight or nine months ago I
wrote you anent battle between star
ling and sharp-shinned hawk which
had seized hapless jay bird (in which
startling forced hawk to drop his prey.
To-day I witnessed the rarest of
spectacles-a gray squirrel and black
squirrel eating and playing with pure
white Cor albino) squirrel.
"The place, the 1400 block of In
graham street NV. The time, about
pm.
II am and have been for nearly II
years the parcel post carrier in that
vicinity.
IT blinked Qiterally) when I dis
mounted from the mail truck and saw
the white squirrel cred eyes, close up
go feet away.
"Only once, as boy. have I seen
pure white squirrel. Then a neighbor
in Southern Virginia on hunting trip
bagged same and had specimen mounted.
"But today in the flesh saw that one,
in perhaps many hundreds OF thousands,
and in all respects, save color and eyes,
he was duplicate of his fellows.
ITO what may one attribute this
rarity of rarities? Yours, E. H."
P. S-I am son, grandson, nephew
and brother of four preachers"
Prof j. Arthur Thomson, the great
English biologist, has this to say about
albinism:
"The albino is an individual animal in
which the hereditary factors for pro-
ducing superficial color are entirely
absent. as in white rats, or white mice.
or white rabbits, whose offspring are
always white.
"A true aIbino may be known by the
reddish eyes, for this means that there
is no pigment in the iris and thus the
color of the blood in the blood vessels
is seen shining through.
"It is plainly necessary to distinguish
the hereditary absence Of pigment CAL
binism) from simple whiteness of color.
For the white ermine, the white Arctic
fox. the white mountain hare, are not
albinos, as their summer forms show.
"Albinos are freaks or sports that
breed true and though they may occur
in wild nature, they do not last"
The melanistic or black form of the
gray squirrel is much commoner than
the albino.
There must be several hundreds of
black squirrels in and around Wash
ington, but only comparative handful
of the al-white ones.
Black ones are found in numbers in
Arlington County, Va; in Takoma Park,
both District of Columbia and Mary
land, and in Chevy Chase, in the block
occupied by the E. v. Brown School
Chat was).
Albinos have been seen in George
town, and there is pearl gray squirrel
in the small park at Seventeenth and
I streets This latter is by no means
white squirrel. however. but merely
happens to be lighter than most gray
! SQUIRRELS, lacking almost all of the brown
| hairs.
An albino may be regarded as a pig
mentless individual in a pigmented race.
| In human beings, the albino is al
ways a subject of interest.
| He is often an unhappy individual,
because he attracts attention, and his
| eyes are often SO weak that he must
keep them partly closed.
He is always blinking his eyes and
| wrinkling the skin around them.
True albinism. according to some au-
thorities, appears to be inherited and
incurable, recessive trait. This is ex-
planned as latently present condition
which may be transmitted after lapse
/ of one or more generations, just as excess
/ of pigmentation is recessive.
The frequency of albinism has been
estimated as in 10000, but this seems
rather high. =