512 DE. C. I. FORSYTH MAJOR ON 



red-tailed and English species " *. Waterhouse's objections are to the following effect : — 

 " Strongly marked ... as these distinctions are, if the Assam Hare be compared with 

 the Common Hare, they are less so when that animal is compared with the Indian Hare 

 {Lepus rtijicauclatus), and much less so when it is compared with the Lepus bracliyurus 

 of Japan. This last-mentioned animal has the short ears and tail of the Lepus Jiispidus, 

 and the same large molar and incisor teeth, combined with a powerfuUy-foi-med skull, 

 but in this skull the notch which sets free from the fore part of the supraorbital process 

 is not absent, as in Lepus hispidus : it agrees in having the patch unusually long, but 

 diflTers from the skull of L. hispidus (as it woiild apj)ear from Mr. Blyth's figures) in 

 having the zygomatic arches straight and parallel as in other Hares ; the Assam species 

 having the zygoma somewhat arched outward. The pecub'arities which I have pointed 

 out as distinguishing the lower jaw of the Lepus riificaudatns from that of the L. timidus 

 are also found in the lower jaw of i. hispidus, but here the angular portion has a still 

 greater transverse diameter " t. The result of these criticisms was the withdrawal of 

 the genus Caj^rokiffus by its author +. 



For my part, I am unable to accept these opinions. Some of the remarks of the 

 former writers are undoubtedly just, and two of the examples of other Leporine species, 

 adduced by Hodgson, as resembling the Hispid Hare, are more to tlie point than 

 Waterhouse's comparisons. But the conclusions I infer from them are very different 

 from those of these authors. The external characters and the conformation of the skull 

 and limbs, in which the Hisjiid Hare is distinguished from L. europceus — taking this latter 

 as the type of the genus Lepus s. str. — are very remarkable. The circumstance, which 

 I shall more fully point ovit hereafter, that there are other Leporines approaching the 

 Hispid, simply shows that the latter — apart from its specialization as the only true 

 fossorial member of the family — does not stand alone, and tliat several other species 

 equally deserve to be separated from the genus Lepus. 



The first attempt at a tabular arrangement of the species of Lepus, according to their 

 affinities, was made by Baird ^, who availed himself of the characters of the skull ; limiting 

 himself — with the exception of "Lepus cuniculus " — to North American species. The six 

 sections into wliich the genus is divided sliow that this excellent observer had on the 

 whole a right conception of the affinities of this group. Not all his sections, however, 

 are of equal value ; section B, comprising L. califormcus and L. callotis, is in reality 

 more closely related to A {L. timidus, X. f/lacialis, L. americanus, L. campeslris, &c.) 

 than to the other sections ; and the same may be said with regard to E {L. Trowbridgei 

 and L. Audubonii), which, as a matter of fact, is in closer relation with D [L. s^lvaticus 

 and allies) than with the rest. 



With such a good example to follow, a successor, taking up the whole of the known 

 Leporidse, might have been enabled to make a furtlier step forward. This is what J. E. 



* B. H. Hodgson, " Ou the Hispid Hare of the 8aul Forest " (Journ. As. Soc. Bengal, xvi. i. p. o74 (1S-J7). 

 t G. R. Waterhouse, 'A iSTatural History of the Mammalia,' ii. p. 80 (1S4S). 

 i E. Blyth, Catal. Mamm. in Mus. Asiat. Soc. Calcutta, p. 133 (1863). 

 § Spencer F. Baird, ' Jfammals of North America,' pp. 574, 575 (1859), 



