X. NOTES ON SOME HARES IN THE INDIAN 



MUSEUM WITH DESCRIPTIONS OF TWO 



NEW FORMS. 



By C. BoDEN Kloss, F.Z.S. 



I owe to the authorities of the Indian Museum the opportunity of 

 examining a number of the hares in their collection and while studying 

 the material lent me have put together the following notes. Unfor- 

 tunately many of the skins are old and deteriorated and in some 

 instances the skulls are very imperfect so that many features are 

 obscured : but on the other hand little detailed information seems to 

 have been published about the hares of the Indian Empire and many 

 of the older descriptions are very sketchy according to modern ideas. 



Though I think but little weight can be attached to the form of the 

 cement groove, or enamel folding, of the upper incisors except for broad 

 distinctions I have described and figured all the examples in the present 

 series. Forsyth-Major states : — " Specimens of the same species may 

 vary slightly owing partly to individual variation. But the shape of 

 the enamel fold varies equally at different stages in the age of the animal ; 

 species whose incisors show the most complicated pattern in the adult 

 have as yet no trace of this in very young animals ; and vice rersd in 

 very old specimens complication tends to disappear again." {Trans. 

 Linn. Soc. Zoology, 2nd Ser., VII, p. 466 ; 1899.) 



The examination of a sufficient series from one place (which is re- 

 quired in order to show what the degree of variation is) still remains to 

 be made, but judging from a set in my possession of Lepus siamensts, 

 Bonhote, obtained from localities in North, Central, Eastern and South- 

 western Siam, — even after making allowance for age — species or races 

 seem to have an incisor groove only definable within wide limits : L. 

 siamensis, for instance, possesses a furcate groove but the number and 

 shape of the branches are very variable. 



As regards hares of the Indian Empire those with some form of 

 triangular groove only occur just within northern limits and the 

 branched-grooved group includes the majority of its forms ; for though 

 in one or two of those examined the groove is squarish, in them the 

 branches have probably aborted. The present series does not show 

 any gradation or connection between the furcate and triangular forms 

 of groove and these two patterns seem of value for grouping purposes. 



It has seemed most convenient to deal with the material geographi- 

 cally beginning with the north-western races. Two new forms are 

 described. 



Lepus yarkandensis. 



GihitluT. Aim. Ma;,. Nat- Hist. (4), XVI, p. 229 (187.3). 



No. 3782. Sub-adult skull from Katti-ilik, Fyzabad, Eastern Turke- 

 stan (F. Stoliczka coll.). Upper incisors with the grooves triangular 



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