FOSSIL AND RECENT LAGOMOliPHA. 513 



Gray attem^^ted to do *. From the title of the article, " Notes on the Skulls of Hares 

 (Leporidte) and Picas (Lagomyida^) in the British Museum," the actual contents could 

 not be guessed, for the work is an attempt at a complete classification of the Lagomorpha, 

 in which several characters besides cranial are made use of. The characters assigned 

 to the family Leporidoe are in part either erroneous (characteristics of the molars), or they 

 do not hold good for all the minor divisions, and are consequently partly in contradiction 

 Avith the subsequent cha; ' ^teristics of the sections. This family is divided first of all into 

 two sections, one reserved for Blyth's Caprola(jus, the other for the rest of the Lejiorida?. 

 This latter is again subdivided into two groups : — A. Hares, B. Babbits, the latter 

 containing the Babbit alone, raised to generic rank [Cuniculus). In group A are given 

 generic names to some of Baird's divisions. The latter's D (ex L. syhaticus) becomes 

 SylvilagKs, his F {L. aqimticus, L. jx'litstris) Hydrolagus ; while a genus Tapeti is 

 created for the Brazilian Hare, and Eiilagos for "i. mediterraneus" and " L. Judcea;.'' 

 In the subdivisions of this A group (Hares), great stress is laid upon a comparatively 

 unimportant cranial character, which had cautiously been made use of by Baird. Thus 

 we get two subdivisions : I. Postorbital process more or less united with the skull 

 [Hydrolagus, Sylvilagtis, Eulagos). J I. Postorbital jirocess separate from the skull 

 [Lepus, Tapeti). 



The species of the genus "■ Lepns" are classed according to geographical distribution, 

 and thus there are unavoidably throA;!! together very heterogeneous forms in the African, 

 Asiatic, and American members. Among the latter are L. Audahoiiil and L. Troio- 

 bridgei, which are thus widely separated from Sylvilagus, containing their closest allies. 



The fore-mentioned paper was wasely ignored by J. A. Allen, in his Analysis of the 

 species and varieties of North American Leporidtef. Allen on the whole follows Baird, 

 with some im2:)rovements in detail, but with one step backward, by widely separating the 

 CuUotis group from L. fiinidiis and its allies. 



Some of Gray's generic names have since been used as subgenera, e.g. by Mearns, 

 with whose "Analysis of three Subgenera of Lepus'' %> containing some valuable 

 information, I propose to deal elsewhere. 



A new genus of Leporida^, Romerolagus, from Mount Popocatepetl (3350 metres), 

 was described some years ago by Hart Merriam §. The author's views as to its 

 systematic position are summed up in the following words :—" The skull, singularly 

 enough, does not show the departure from Lepus that one would expect from a 

 study of the other bones. It agrees in the main with skulls of the American Cotton- 

 tails (subgenus Sylnilagus), but differs in the postorbital processes, which are small, 

 divergent posteriorly, and altogether wanting anteriorly, and in the jugal, which is 

 greatly elongated posteriorly. The interparietal is distinct, and in old age becomes 

 ankylosed with the supraoccipital. The thoroughly leporine character of the skull shows 

 that the animal can hardly be regarded as ancestral to Lepus, as might have been 



* Ann. & Mag. Xiit. Hist. xx. 3, p. 210 (1807). 



t ' Monographs of North American Rodentia. — II. Leporida?,' by J. A. Allen, p. 283 (1876). 

 + Proo. U. S. Nat. Mus. xviii. p. 5.51 (1896). 

 § Troc. Biol. Soc. of Washington, x. p. 169-174 (1896). 

 SECOND SEEIES. — ZOOLOGY, VOL. VII. 71 



