ion ^ jyt'lsoii — Screii Xcii' Ti(il)hH^. 



bufty ; top of tail dull reddisli brown ; nape bright rusty or light cinnamon- 

 rufous ; circumorbital area white ; neck on sides and l)elow (hill ochraceous 

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

 of fore legs and front of hind legs and top 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 brownisli black to- 

 ward tip. 



Skull characlcrx. — Longer and projiortionately narrower than in true 

 floridanns ; 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 Horlihinns ; jugal 

 with a strong groove ending anteriorly in a well-marked pit ; ]m\\se smaller 

 than in true foridanus but larger than in (iztecus ; general outline of skull 

 above less strongly convex than in fioridavnn and more as in aztecns and 

 russaius. 



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

 length, 442; tail vertebr;^, 68; hind foot, 97 ; ear from notch (from skin), ()8. 



Cranial measurements of type: Occijoito-nasal length, 70; l)asal length 

 ofHensel, 57; interorbital width, 18; parietal width, 2() ; length of nasals, 

 35 ; width of nasals at base, 16; greatest diameter of bulhe, 10. 



Specimens examined. — Forty-one. 



General notes. — Speciipens in midsummer pelage from the humid basal 

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

 color from typical floridmius at tiie 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 chnpmani their much laiger 

 size, darker colors, and tlie much larger and heavier skull readily distin- 

 guish them. From rns.tatn.'^, the nearest relative on the south, they may 

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

 skull. Specimens fi-om 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 ro)i- 

 nectens and russatus, 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. AV. 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. 



