1896.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 359 



So far as I am able to determine, there are no secondary sexual 

 color characters in the Polar Hares of America. 



The young, at birth, as well as in the more advanced foetal stage, 

 are as dark or even darker colored than their parents in full sum- 

 mer pelage. In grcenlandicus they are fully and thickly haired 

 some time before birth, and resemble in color and color pattern 

 much faded summer skins of arctlcus from Great Slave Lake. The 

 inner posterior half of the ears is white, their tips and inner borders 

 broadly marked with black, the remainder of the ear rusty gray. 

 The pelage is remarkably long and well developed for an embryo. 

 The soles of the hind feet are as dark as the back, their uppers 

 white. The fore-feet and the tail are white throughout. With in- 

 creasing age, the young of the northern forms assume a lighter col- 

 ored pelage and it becomes nearly as white as that of their parents 

 ere the winter fur begins to replace it. In the south the half-grown 

 young are marked very similarly to their adult associates, but with 

 a stronger fulvous or brownish tinge among the gray. 



HABITS. 



I find very few satisfactory accounts of the habits of any of our 

 American species of Polar Hare. The literature on this subject 

 mainly consists of brief allusions to the animal by Arctic explorers, 

 and some of the most observing of these seem to have formed a very 

 imperfect acquaintance with the animal. Richardson's account in 

 the Fauna Boreali Americana is the best one relating to Lepus arc- 

 ticus of the interior of British America. He says : " It is not found 

 in wooded districts, hence it does not come further south on the 

 line of the Mackenzie and Slave Lake, than latituds 64°. It was 

 found in latitude 75°, on the North Georgian Islands. Although 

 it does not frequent thick woods, it is often seen near the small and 

 thin clumps of spruce fir, which are scattered on the confines of the 

 Barren Grounds. It seeks the sides of the hills, where the wind pre- 

 vents the snow from lodging deeply and where, even in the winter, 

 it can procure the berries of the Alpine arbutus, the bark of some 

 dwarf willows, or the evergreen leaves of the Labrador tea-plant 

 (ledum). It does not dig burrows, but shelters itself amongst large 

 stones or in the crevices of rocks, and in the winter time its form is 

 generally found in a wreath of snow, at the base of a cliff". The 

 Polar Hare is not a very shy animal, and on the approach of a 

 hunter it merely runs to a little distance, and sits down, repeating 



