214 LEPORID&. 
little animals which he had detected in that remote and 
unfrequented region. 
The Pikas are remarkable for their industrial instincts, 
which lead them in the summer season to select and dry 
a quantity of herbage for their winter provision, These 
haystacks, which are sometimes six or seven feet high, are 
a valuable resource for the horses of the sable-hunters. 
Since the time of Pallas, species of Lagomys have been 
discovered at a considerable altitude on the Himalayas, . 
and also in North America. 
The former existence of Pikas, or tail-less Hares in Europe, 
appears to have been first recognised by Cuvier,* who deter- 
mined a species, nearly allied to the Lagomys alpinus ot 
Siberia, amongst the fossils of the ossiferous breccia at Cette, 
in Corsica; and he was led to suspect the existence of 
another species of Lagomys, by the inspection of certain 
drawings of fossil jaws, and other bones from the breccias 
of Gibraltar, preserved in the museum of Adrien Camper. 
The relations of these fossils to the Siberian genus La- 
gomys were more definitely pointed out by Wagner in 
Kastner’s ‘ Archiv fur Naturgeschichte,’ tom. iv. 
The fossil from Kent’s Hole consists of the facial or 
maxillary part of the skull of a full-grown individual, with 
the molar and incisive teeth 7x sitw on one side, demon- 
strating the longitudinal furrow on the large anterior chisel- 
shaped incisor, (fig. 82,) and the small posterior supple- 
mentary incisors, (7, fig. 83,) which the genus Lagomys has 
in common with the ordinary Hares and Rabbits. 
The dentition of the small Siberian tail-less Hares 
closely resembles that in the true genus Lepus, in the form 
of the teeth, and differs principally in the absence of the 
small molar tooth which terminates the series posteriorly 
* Ossemens Fossiles, tom. iv. pp. 174, 178. 
