106 Nelson Seven New Rabbits. 



buffy ; top of tail dull reddish brown ; nape bright rusty or light cinnamon- 

 rufous ; circumorbital area white ; neck on sides and below dull ochraceous 

 buffy; front of fore legs and outside of hind legs cinnamon rufous; back 

 of fore legs and front of hind legs and tqp of hind feet white with a pale 

 buffy suffusion on feet and toes ; ears narrowly edged with white ; convex 

 surface brownish gray on base gradually darkening to brownish black to 

 ward tip. 



Skull characters. Longer and proportionately narrower than in true 

 floridanus; rostrum long with height equaling width at base; nasals long, 

 proportionately narrow and depressed at tip, giving upper surface of rostrum 

 a gently convex outline; braincase rather narrow and drawn out, giving a 

 more gently curving outline posteriorly than in typical floridanus ; jugal 

 with a strong groove ending anteriorly in a well-marked pit ; bullse smaller 

 than in true floridanus but larger than in aztecus ; general outline of skull 

 above less strongly convex than in floridanus and more as in aztecus and 

 russatus. 



Measurements. External measurements of type (taken in flesh) : Total 

 length, 442; tail vertebrae, 63 ; hind foot, 97; ear from notch (from skin), 63. 



Cranial measurements of type: Occipito-nasal length, 76; basal length 

 of Hensel, 57 ; interorbital width, 18 ; parietal width, 26 ; length of nasals, 

 35 ; \vidth of nasals at base, 16; greatest diameter of bullse, 10. 



Specimens examined. Forty-one. 



General notes. Specimens in midsummer pelage from the humid basal 

 mountain slopes near Jalapa, Vera Cruz, and elsewhere differ but little in 

 color from typical floridanus at the same season ; the legs are a little 

 browner and less reddish, and the head is more grayish ; the ears are 

 nearly the same in size and color. Such specimens can only be distin 

 guished by size and skull characters. From chapmani their much larger 

 size, darker colors, and the much larger and heavier skull readily distin 

 guish them. From russatus, the nearest relative on the south, they may 

 be known by their paler colors, much larger ears, and broader and heavier 

 skull. Specimens from the humid mountain slopes at Metlaltoyuca 

 (Puebla), Jico, near Jalapa (Vera Cruz), and Mt. Zempoaltepec (Oaxaca) 

 average rather larger and darker than those from the coast lowlands, but 

 the difference is too slight and inconstant to warrant more than passing 

 mention. Specimens from Mt. Zempoaltepec are intergrades between con- 

 nectens and russtitus, with ears approaching the latter, but their skull char 

 acters place them with the former. 



Lepus floridanus chiapensis subsp. nov. 



CHIAPAS COTTONTAIL. 



Type. Adult female, No. 75,953, U. S. National Museum, Biological Sur 

 vey Collection, from San Cristobal, Chiapas. Collected September 28, 1895, 

 by E. W. Nelson and E. A. Goldman. Original number 8483. 



Distribution. Interior of Chiapas and western Guatemala, from not over 

 2,500 feet above sea level up to the summits of the highlands at over 10,000 

 feet. 



