370 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [1896. 



North Polar regions westward, is an interesting problem, which 

 lack of specimens prevents me from answering. That it is radically 

 distinct from any American or Old World species represented in 

 the collections at my disposal, is certain. 



Through the courtesy of Mr. William De Winton, of the British 

 Museuu), I am in receipt of the following information about the 

 hares of Grinnell Land : " The collection is rich in specimens of 

 old and young from more northern localities, and those from Dis- 

 covery Bay, Lincoln Bay, etc., have the characters [of grcenlandi- 

 cus] mentioned [in your letter], viz. : the pi'ojecting, narrow, slightly 

 grooved incisors." Accompanying this, Mr. De Winton sends a 

 full length tracing of an upper incisor from a skull from Lincoln 

 Bay, 82° 7', Grinnell Land, which unmistakably belongs to the 

 grcenlandlcus type. He further says that these incisor " characters 

 are not so marked in the small brown young," and that " Green- 

 land specimens are more curved, so far as our collection shows, but 

 they seem to me to get straighter with age, till the angle of meeting 

 is considerably less than a right angle." In all particulars Mr. 

 De Wiuton's examinations not only confirm but emphasize my own. 

 Respecting the color of the young, which he incidentally mentions 

 as " brown," it is of interest to note that while hali-grown individ- 

 uals are very light bluish-gi'ay (nearl}' white), the newly born 

 young and fully developed embryos collected by Dr. Hays at Port 

 Foulke, Greenland, in the Academy's collection, are quite dark and 

 resemble in color and color pattern miniature summer specimens of 

 L. timidus, but are grayer. The embryos are densely clothed with 

 long hair. The number of specimens in each litter above mentioned 

 is four. Whether the full complement in each case was preserved, 

 I am unable to state. The most satisfactory and reliable account 

 of the Greenland Hare that I have seen is the one by H. W. 

 Feilden, already referred to, in which he treats of these animals in 

 Grinnell Land as observed by the Nares Expedition. The speci- 

 mens secured by Mr. Feilden are those referred to above by Mr. 

 De Winton, which I have identified as grcenlandicus. Feilden 

 found the young of the year to have become nearly pure white by 

 the end of July. The number of young in a litter was seven to 

 eight. Tracks of this Hare were seen on the Polar Sea in lat. 

 83° 10', twenty miles north of the nearest -land. 



Specimens examined. — Port Foulke, Greenland, 1 mounted skin 

 and skull, 1 skull and 8 embryos in alcohol. Robertson's Bay, Green- 

 land, 3 skins, 7 skulls. 



