It's totally my lack of doughnuts this week, though.
I found this fascinating book on fur from 1904 today, here if you want to read the whole thing I guess? but it probably won't be as fascinating to you as it was to me. Seriously, I've looked in encyclopedias for this kind of thing, Wikipedia, everything, but I guess you need a more in-depth source when looking for information on a topic that... I guess a lot of people aren't that curious about, or you'd expect there'd be more there? Just in the first paragraph I learned more than I'd even been taught my whole life. The paragraphs are very very long of course; the three excerpts below are all from the first paragraph, which takes up the majority of three pages.
I don't know; I guess I've just always loved fur.There's nothing in the world like it. On the hoof (or paw or whatever) or off. It's never bothered me how we need to kill to get it; we eat meat, don't we, and I just see it as sort of romantic how you'd live on longer than that being killed for just that instead. It's such a personal topic to me, sacred even (go so far as to say another form of spirituality) that I feel kind of weird sharing this, but, hey look facts:
Fur is the term generally and quite indiscriminately used to designate the hirsute growth covering almost completely the bodies of many species of animals, embracing a majority of the otherwise diverse quadrupeds dwelling in comparative peace, by stealth, or by strenuous endeavor in forests, vales, or marshes; upon isles of the sea and ranges of eternal snow; and throughout the more or less densely settled tracts and wild wastes of temperate and frigid zones. But this definition, or comprehension, of fur is incorrect, whether it is considered as a study in natural history, or from a commercial standpoint, as this growth upon the skins of animals is distinctly dual in character, consisting of both hair and fur. Hair has a smooth surface, is round, tubular or hollow nearly throughout its length, rather brittle when quite dry; and generally remarkably hard. It varies considerably in development, ranging in length from about one-half inch or less upon certain canines, to six or eight inches upon some monkeys, goats, and the Polar bear....
The harp seal, born on the ice on the coast of Labrador, and the horse, and musk ox, native of Greenland, are hairy; while the fox and otter, having their habitat in the flowery fields and swamps of Florida, are furry. Nature determined the animal's general physical conditions in the beginning, and nature's laws, having been established in wisdom, are manifestly destined to abide. Some animals, including the horse, ox, lion, camel, and members of the deer family, have coats exclusively of hair. The covering on the skin of the mole is practically all fur. But nearly all the humble creatures designated as fur-bearers have coats consisting of both hair and fur developed in varying proportions, the fur largely predominating....
Fur serves the animal as a protective garment, not because it supplies warmth, but undoubtedly on account of the fact that, being a very poor conductor of heat, it retains in the body of the living creature practically all the vital heat developed, and which suffices for the perfect comfort of the animal during the severely cold days and nights of an extended winter. Even animals, including those as large as the bear, which hibernate during the months of prevailing low temperatures, seemingly experience no real or great discomfort on account of cold. For the same reason, that fur is a very indifferent conductor of heat, furry creatures endure in comparative indifference the ardent warmth of the summer months, the heat penetrating to their bodies very slowly if at all. The view may reasonably be advanced that fur-bearers, particularly those most fully furred, are never painfully conscious either of external heat or cold, and that the temperature of their bodies is approximately uniform under all climatic conditions.
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