LEPORIDA—LEPUS CALLOTIS ET. VAR. 353 
stages that the passage from the one to the other is by very gradual steps. Thus 
the general aspect above of specimens from Utah is grayish-white, with the 
faintest tinge of brownish, strongly mixed with black, with a black spot at 
the tip of the ear an inch or more in length. The specimens from Texas 
and Orizaba, on the other hand, are strongly washed above with fulvous, with 
the black ear-spot greatly reduced or wholly obsolete. In the Tehuantepec 
specimen, the fulvous culminates in a quite intense yellowish-brown. 
The general size varies, as usual, very considerably in different individ- 
uals.. Taking the size of the skull as the most convenient standard of com- 
parison, we find the extremes of variation in a series of eight adult specimens 
to be, length, 3.37 to 4.08; width, 1.63 to 1.82. The ears vary in length in 
different specimens from 4.50 to 6.00, the largest-eared examples coming 
generally from the most southern localities. 
General remarks. 
Synonymy.—The variations in color already described have given rise to 
several synonyms. ‘The species was first described by Wagler in 1830, from 
specimens collected in Mexico, under the name Lepus callotis. In 1833, 
Mr. Bennett redescribed it from specimens said to have come from “Cali- 
fornia”, but which doubtless came from Western Mexico, under the name 
Lepus nigricaudatus. In 1836, Richardson referred undoubtedly to this 
species, under what seems to have been a MS. name of Lichtenstein’s in the 
Berlin Museum, as “ Lepus mexicanus Licht.”* Wagner, in 1844, redescribed 
the species from Mexican specimens, recognizing three varieties from Mexico, 
viz, var. I. L. callotis; var. Il. L. nigricaudatus; var. U1. L. flavigularis, 
all based on specimens from Mexico. The differences consist in variations 
of color, the variety named flavigularis apparently closely resembling the 
above-described example from Tehuantepec. In 1848, Waterhouse described 
aspecimen, from an unknown locality, with black tips to the ears, as presuma- 
bly the Lepus texianus of Audubon and Bachman, on the identification of the 
specimen by Mr.J.W. Audubon. In 1853, Audubon and Bachman described 
a Lepus texianus as the common “Jackass Rabbit” of Texas, but without any 
allusion to Waterhouse’s provisional description of a species under the same 
name. Audubon and Bachman do not mention the ears as having black tips, 
* Respecting this name, Waterhouse observes: ‘The brief note relating to the L. mexicanus of the 
Berlin Museum, furnished me by Dr. Bachman, describes that animal as having the back of the neck 
black; the white of the under parts of the body extending high upon the flanks, and, indeed, in all 
other respects agreeing with the characters of L. callotis.” Nat. Hist. Mam., ii, 141. 
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