LEPORID®—LEPUS SYLVATICUS. 341 
Nord-Amerikanische Haase”. His description is detailed and precise, and is 
unmixed with allusions to any other species. Yet Schoepf’s description was 
later almost universally cited among the references to L. americanus. The 
LI. americanus, however, of Erxleben, and the L. hudsonius of Pallas, as 
previously shown, refer exclusively to the smaller Varying Hare of Hudson’s 
Bay, which for many years was the only species of Hare supposed to inhabit 
North America south of the Arctic regions. Consequently, the Z. americanus 
of most authors previous to about the year 1840 included more or less vague 
allusions to L. sylvaticus. Desmarest, however, in 1820, made the confusion 
complete by describing (from Schoepf’s account) L. sy/vaticus under the name 
L. americanus, although quoting references also to the Northern Varying Hare, 
and extending its habitat to embrace the region west of Hudson’s Bay, as 
well as the more southern parts of the continent. His name was adopted 
by Harlan and other American authors for this species; even Dr. Bachman, 
in 1837, in his first article on the Hares, fell into the same error. He 
promptly, however, corrected the mistake, and adopted for the species, really 
up to this time without a scientific designation, the very appropriate specific 
name of L. sylvaticus. In his second article on the American Leporide, 
published in 1839, he brought the name more prominently forward, since 
which time it has been in very general use. 
The only other rival name is nanus of Schreber, which even some 
recent authors have still used in place of sylvaticus. Such a practice is, 
however, wholly unwarranted, as most clearly and exhaustively shown by 
Bachman in his later account of the species in Audubon and Bachman’s 
North American Quadrupeds (vol. i, pp. 179-188, 1849). Schreber’s 
description was compiled from previous authors, and in almost every detail 
applies to L. americanus, and scarcely in any particular to L. sylvaticus. 
His account of its habits and distribution includes both those of L. americanus 
and L. sylvaticus, he giving its habitat as extending from Hudson’s Bay to 
Florida. His figure, however, Professor Baird believes to be clearly that of 
L. sylvaticus, but it bears really so little resemblance to either that it may be 
safely ignored. Schreber’s account is evidently drawn in part from Schoepf, 
but largely also from Forster, Pennant, and Kalm. 
The Hare from the plains of the Columbia, described by Dr. Bachman 
in 1837 as Lepus nuttalli, and regarded as “the most diminutive of any 
species of true Hare yet discovered ”, was undoubtedly but an immature speci- 
