44 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE HARE 



parents in the character of their pelage, but are in- 

 ferior in size to pure-bred animals. The ears and the 

 tails of such hybrids are constantly rather shorter 

 than those of the common hare. Fatio has himself 

 examined such animals ; they were procured in the 

 Bernese Oberland and the Valais. Professor Theobald 

 repeatedly received hybrid hares from the Oberhalb- 

 stein, and even kept one of them alive for a consider- 

 able period. 



This subject has not received its proper share of 

 attention from Scottish naturalists ; but further research 

 may prove, perhaps, that these blue and brown hares 

 do, in some rare and exceptional instances, interbreed. 

 Mr. Lumsden exhibited a supposed hybrid hare before 

 the Glasgow Natural History Society. It had- been 

 shot in December 1876, near Dumbarton Moor, upon 

 which blue hares had been turned out a few years 

 previously. Mr. J. Cordeaux shot a similar animal in 

 Perthshire in September of the same year. ' This ex- 

 ample, which he compared the same day with pure 

 specimens of both species, exhibited very distinctly a 

 mixture of the colours of both parents, that of the 

 common hare predominating. It differed also, in 

 some respects, from the mountain hare, being generally 

 larger, with larger head, larger ears, and broader fore- 

 head. The head keeper on this moor, an experienced 



