in their descendants the Himalayans would come under the law of reversion,
supervening at different periods of growth and in different degrees, either
to the original black or to the original albino parent-variety.

It is, also, remarkable that Himalayans, though produced so suddenly; breed
true. But as, whilst young, they are albinoes, the case falls under a very
general rule; albinism being well known to be strongly inherited, for
instance with white mice and many other quadrupeds, and even white flowers.
But why, it may be asked, do the ears, tail, nose, and feet, and no other
part of the body, revert to a black colour? This apparently depends on a
law, which generally holds good, namely, that characters common to many
species of a genus--and this, in fact, implies long inheritance from the
ancient progenitor of the genus--are found to resist variation, or to
reappear if lost, more persistently than the characters which are confined
to the separate species. Now, in the genus Lepus, a large majority of the
species have their ears and the upper surface of the tail tinted black; but
the persistence of these marks is best seen in those species which in
winter become white: thus, in Scotland the L. variabilis (4/19. G.R.
Waterhouse 'Natural History of Mammalia: Rodents' 1846 pages 52, 60, 105.)
in its winter dress has a shade of colour on its nose, and the tips of its
ears are black: in the L. tibetanus the ears are black, the upper surface
of the tail greyish-black, and the soles of the feet brown: in L. glacialis
the winter fur is pure white, except the soles of the feet and the points
of the ears. Even in the variously-coloured fancy rabbits we may often
observe a tendency in these same parts to be more darkly tinted than the
rest of the body. Thus the several coloured marks on the Himalayan rabbits,
as they grow old, are rendered intelligible. I may add a nearly analogous
case: fancy rabbits very often have a white star on their foreheads; and
the common English hare, whilst young, generally has, as I have myself
observed, a similar white star on its forehead.