LEPORIDA—LEPUS TIMIDUS. 291 
area. Fur below the surface faintly shaded with brown; ears pale brown 
in front, washed with whitish. 
No. 409 (Coll.-S. I.), Sweden (Helsingland), January 29, 1847, ? (name 
on label ‘‘ Lepus variabilis Pall., var. borealis Nilss.”)—White, with a few 
black hairs intermixed, and a faint shade of brown below the surface. 
No. 772 (S. L.), north of Scotland, January, 1855.—Middle portion of 
the under-fur slightly tinged with pat brown. Anterior surface of ears 
yellowish gray-brown. 
No. 777 (S. L), north of Scotland, January, 1855.—Middle portion of 
fur of upper parts strongly tinged with yellowish-brown. Many black hairs 
in the dorsal surface, giving a rather strong dusky-grayish tint to the whole 
dorsal area, including the top of the head. Anterior face of ears black, 
washed with yellowish-brown. Many reddish-brown and dusky hairs on the 
feet, especially on the fore feet. 
No. 411 (S. I.), Sweden, March, 1846, ad. ¢ (name on label “ Lepus 
variabilis Pall., var. canescens Nilss.”)—General color of the upper surface 
reddish-gray ; under fur plumbeous at base, then pale yellowish-brown. 
Hairs white, many of them black-tipped. 
In Nos. 1587 and 5181 (8. 1), winter specimens from Newfoundland, 
1030 (S. I.), from Greenland, and 6961 and 6962 (S.1.), from Fort Rae, 
north shore of Great Slave Lake, the fur is pure white to the base. The 
black spot at the tip of the ear varies greatly in extent in different speci- 
mens, in some being reduced almost to obsolescence. 
While at southern localities the winter pelage is more or less mixed 
with brown, on the other hand the animal frequently remains permanently 
white at extreme northern localities, asin Greenland (Fabricius) and Siberia 
(Gmelin). Sabine states, “In some of the full-grown specimens killed 
fon Melville Island] in the height of summer, the hair of the back and sides 
was of a grayish-brown towards the points, but the mass of the fur still 
remained white.”* A specimen before me (No. 3284, Coll. S. I.), from 
Arekamchichi Island, Bering’s Straits, presents exactly this appearance, 
although evidently an adult summer specimen. 
In young specimens, apparently but a few weeks old, the under fur is 
plumbeous at base, then pale grayish-fulvous. The hairs are subterminally 
tinged with whitish and narrowly tipped with black. A specimen from 
* Parry’s [First] Voyage, suppl., 137. 
