90 The Irish Naturalist. 



The Mountain Hare {Lepus tiviidus, Linn.) comes in for a 

 very moderatel}^ liberal treatment at Mr. Lj^dekker's hands, 

 and we could add considerably to his account of this species 

 did space permit us. We must, however, be content to point 

 out a few things which seem to have escaped Mr. Lydekker's 

 attention. Thus, there is no allusion to the weight of this 

 animal, which, according to Mr. J. E. Harting,^ in Scotland 

 averages " probably between 5 lbs. and 6 lbs. ; the heaviest I 

 have noticed weighed 7J lbs." In the South of Ireland we 

 have found the average weight of the hares to agree very much 

 with the above, but we have weighed hares in January (does) 

 which turned the scale at 9 lbs. and ()\ lbs. Doubtless the fact 

 that they were lowland hares had something to do with it. 

 Although we have weighed hares which were heavier than 

 these, we cannot at this moment find the note we made of it. 

 It is certainly wrong to say of this Hare, as far as concerns 

 Ireland at least, that ** instead of making a ' regular form' it 

 skulks among stones or in the clefts of rocks, or hides among 

 the heather or fern. " In the lowlands at least of Ireland this 

 Hare makes a regular form, and in this and some other 

 respects seems to have almost entirely adopted the habits of 

 the English Hare. 



The date of the supposed introduction of the Rabbit into 

 Ireland seems to be completely a matter of conjecture, but 

 the animal would appear to have been well established during 

 all the historical period. In 1741 Rabbit's fur was one of the 

 exports of the city of Cork."" As regards the weight of wild 

 Rabbits (a point not touched upon by Mr. Lydekker), we may 

 refer to a note by Mr. Harting.^ In Irish Rabbits there does 

 not seem to be any difference in weight from that of those 

 killed in England. 



That the Red-deer, now confined as a wild animal to Kerry, 

 was once widely distributed over Ireland, is proved by the 

 numerous discoveries of its bones over the island, and by the 

 historical allusions. An interesting paper on this species 

 appeared in 1882, written by Mr. R. J. Ussher.'* This is the 



^ Field, September 5, 1891. ^Journal Cork Arch. Soc, 1893, p. 392. 



^ Field, Dec. 3, 1892. ^ Zoologist, March, 1882. 



