LEPORIDAI—LEPUS SYLVATICUS ET VARS. 343 
Lepus nuttalli and L£. artemisia were thus described from specimens 
obtained from the same locality, and the former was undoubtedly based on a 
young specimen of the form so currently known of late years as L. artemisia. 
The locality of the original specimens of ZL. bachmani is conjectural, and 
may have been either California or Texas, though probably the latter. Later, 
the name was applied by Audubon and Bachman to the small Gray Hare 
of the Texas plains, which is undoubtedly the same as the ZL. artemisza, 
described a year later, although the specimens so designated by Professor 
Baird more nearly approach var. sy/vaticus. As noticed by Professor Baird, 
the name nuttalli has a priority of two years over artemzsia and of one year 
over bachmani, the latter also preceding artemisia by one year. Hence it 
unfortunately happens that, according to the strict rule of priority, the name 
artemisia, which has become familiar as the appellation of the “Sage Rabbit” 
of the plains, must give way to the less familiar one of nuétali, the original 
type of which was only an immature specimen of this now well-known 
species. 
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.—Lepus sylvaticus (including its several 
varieties) occupies the greater part of the southern half of the continent. In 
the eastern part of the United States, its northern limit coincides nearly with 
the northern limit of the Alleghanian fauna, or with the isotherm of 45°. 
This isotherm seems also to form its northern limit in the interior, or west of 
the Mississippi River. West of this point, it seems not to have been met 
with to the northward of the northern boundary of the United States. 
Variety sylvaticus extends from Southern Maine southward, throughout the 
States east of the Mississippi to Florida and the Gulf coast, excepting per- 
haps the more elevated portion of the Apalachian highlands. It also occurs 
throughout the States adjoining the Mississippi, as far westward even as the 
eastern portions of Nebraska, Kansas, and the Indian Territory, and also 
throughout Eastern Texas and thence southward to Yucatan. In Middle 
Kansas, or near the ninety-eighth meridian, it already begins to assume the 
characters of variety nuttalli, which ranges thence westward to Oregon and 
the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and southward from near the forty-ninth parallel 
into the highlands of Mexico. Over the drier portions of Arizona and the 
adjoining country, it passes into variety arizone, and on the Pacific slope is 
represented by variety awduboni. Variety auduboni extends along the Pacific 
coast from Northern California to San Diego, in Southern California passing 
