LEPORID^E. ROMEROLAGUS. 411 



becomes deciduous, but the inner small pair is retained through life. 

 The food of these animals is strictly vegetable. Rabbits have been 

 introduced into various parts of the world, and in some lands have 

 multiplied to such an extent as to become very serious pests, and 

 all kinds of methods for exterminating them have been tried in vain, 

 illustrating in a very forcible and unpleasant manner the foolishness 

 of man when he disturbs the harmony of Nature and interferes with 

 her distribution of animal life upon the Globe. In sections of 

 western North America Jack Rabbits, so-called, abound in such 

 extraordinary numbers that great hunts are regularly organized and 

 attended by all the ranchmen in the vicinity, and many thousands of 

 these animals are killed in a single day, having been "rounded up" 

 in a manner similar to that employed with the half-wild range cattle, 

 except that the Hares are driven into a space inclosed with nets, 

 from which there is no escape, and where they are speedily dispatched 

 with clubs. In spite of these wholesale executions, and all other 

 fatalities that overtake them, Hares still flourish. 



One other family is comprised in this suborder, the LAGOMYID^E, 

 containing the little Chief Hares, or Pikas. No species are found 

 within the lands embraced in this work so far as known. Far up 

 the mountain sides, sometimes at an elevation of many thousand 

 feet, amid the ranges that form the "backbone" of the North 

 American Continent, their fortress a hole amid the rocks, these little 

 creatures, whose aspect is between that of a guinea-pig and a rabbit, 

 live in colonies and betray their presence to the intruder on their 

 domains by sharp, squeaking, querulous ventriloquial notes or cries, 

 deceptive as to distance and locality. Very timid, the Pikas are shy 

 and watchful, and survey an interloper from the farther side of some 

 friendly stone. They lay up stores of provisions, such as grass and 

 other herbage, against the long severe winter, and are very indus- 

 trious. Four young are produced in the spring about May. Pikas 

 are very small, tailless animals, about eight inches in length, with 

 large, flat ears, small eyes, and a rudimentary thumb with claw. 



Fam. IX. Leporidse. Hares, Rabbits. 



C. J. Forsyth-Major, On Fossil and Recent Lagomorpha. Trans. 

 Zool. Soc., 1898, p. 433. 



Romerolagus Merr., Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash., x, 1896, p. 173. Type 



Romcrolagus nclsoni Merriam. 



Small; ears, hind legs, and feet short. Skull similar to that of the 

 subgenus Sylvilagns, but postorbital processes are lacking anteriorly, 



