3 oo leporim:— lepus 



northern origin, and showing no close relationship with the 

 Greenland Hare. They are the descendants of animals 

 formerly of much wider distribution. They may have origin- 

 ated, as Hinton suggests (op. cit. supra, p 259), in Asia, 

 possibly, indeed, in North America, but they have given way 

 before the competition of more generalised immigrants of the 

 same family, before which they have retreated to mountains, to 

 the polar lands, or to isolated districts, where their strong teeth 

 enable them to masticate the coarse herbage. The newer 

 arrivals have not always had time or power to penetrate these 

 districts, which are, besides, not always attractive on account 

 of their severe climate and deficient food supply. This is shown 

 by the fact that the Brown Hare thrives quite well in Ireland 

 when introduced there (see above, p. 258), and more clearly 

 still by recent events in Skandinavia. Brown Hares are not 

 indigenous to that country, which they were evidently unable 

 to reach owing to the intervention of the Baltic, but they have 

 recently been introduced by sportsmen, and, according to 

 Lonnberg, multiply and crowd out the native hares (see 

 above, p. 237). 



In the present state of knowledge it is difficult to attempt 

 to explain how the Brown Hare ousts the Varying. Scharff 

 {Irish Naturalist, 1898, 126) insists on the existence of "a 

 spirit of antagonism " between the two groups, and such a 

 spirit seems to be almost taken for granted by sportsmen who 

 have both on their lands (see Journ. cit., 1898, 69-76); but 

 there can hardly be active antagonism, since the two species 

 mingle freely, and even interbreed where their ranges overlap. 

 Probably it is a simple case of "crowding out" in a straight- 

 forward struggle for survival of the fittest. The advance of 

 tillage farming and the progress of deforestation may possibly 

 be a factor in the situation. It was stated to be so in Livonia 

 (Von Loewis, Zool. Garten, 1877, 17-20), and in certain parts 

 of North America similar changes have resulted in restriction 

 of the area occupied by the " Snowshoe Rabbit " (L. americanus), 

 and a consequent extension of the ranges of the Prairie Hare 

 (L. campestris) and of the cottontails {Sylvilagus). 



In Newfoundland, on the other hand, the Nova Scotian 

 Varying Hare, L. americanus struthopus of Bangs, which was 



