LEPORIDiE— SrEClES WRONGLY ATTRIBUTED TO X. AMERICA. 3G9 

 SPECIES WRONGLY ATTRIBUTED TO AMERICA. 



Ill 1837, Dr. J. E. Gray* described a Lepus longicaudatus from a speci- 

 men supposed to have been brought from " Magellan Land " by Capt. P. P. 

 King. This specimen was redescribed under the same name by Dr. Bach- 

 man f in 1839, who says: "The specimen from which I have made the 

 above description [of L, longicaudatus] is the original one from which Mr. 

 Gray established the characters of this species. It was obtained by Doug- 

 lass on his last visit to the southwestern coast of North America, and was 

 sent to England after his melancholy death. The precise locality is not 

 known, but is supposed to be in the northwestern part of Texas." Wagner,J 

 in 1844, also gave a description of a "Lepus longicaudatus Bachman", com- 

 piled from the preceding authors, and the name also figures later in the works 

 of several compilers. Waterhouse, || in 1848, speaks of it as a purely nominal 

 species, and says it was based on "a specimen in the museum of the Zoological 

 Society, from which the label had become detached and lost", and which "was 

 surmised to be a native of this part [California] of America, as it was like- 

 wise of the southernmost part of South America". He adds that the speci- 

 men "proves to be a South African animal, being, without doubt, the L.'sax- 

 atilis". Gray§ later also cites his L. longicaudatus among his synonyms of 

 L. saxatilis, but at the same time retains it as a doubtful species from 

 "Magellan's Straits"! 



A species was described by Lesson, H in 1826, as Lepus magellanicus, 

 from specimens from the Falkland Islands, which proved, as stated above, 

 to be merely the common Lepus cuniculus in a feral state. 



NOTE ON THE NAMES "RABISIT'' AND " HARE." 



"What is a 'Rabbit' as distinguished from a ' Hare' V or conversely, is a 

 question one often hears in relation to our American species of Leporida, 

 and one deserving of a moment's attention, since many suppose these names 

 to have a definite application. Such, indeed, was originally the case, Hare 

 being a generic name and Rabbit the distinctive name of a particular species 

 of Hare. Thus, in England, Rabbit is the distinctive English name of the 



* Cbarlesworth's Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. i, p. 586, 1837. 

 t Journ. Acad. Nat. Sci. Pbila., vol. viii, p. 84, 1839. 

 t Scbreber's Saugeth., Suppl., vol. iv, p. 110, 1844. 

 || Nat. Hist. Mam., vol. ii, p. 132, 1818. 

 § Auu. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 3d ser., vol. xx, p. 223, 18G7. 

 U Ball, des Soi. Nat., viii, 96. 

 24 M 



