214 LEPORIDjE. 



little animals which he had detected in that remote and 

 unfrequented region. 



The Pikas are remarkable for their industrial instincts, 

 which leaoV them in the summer season to select and dry 

 a quantity of herbage for their winter provision. These 

 haystacks, which are sometimes six or seven feet high, are 

 a valuable resource for the horses of the sable-hunters. 

 Since the time of Pallas, species of Lagomys have been 

 discovered at a considerable altitude on the Himalayas, 

 and also in North America. 



The former existence of Pikas, or tail-less Hares in Europe, 

 appears to have been first recognised by Cuvier,* who deter- 

 mined a species, nearly allied to the Lagomys alpinus of 

 Siberia, amongst the fossils of the ossiferous breccia at Cette, 

 in Corsica ; and he was led to suspect the existence of 

 another species of Lagomys, by the inspection of certain 

 drawings of fossil jaws, and other bones from the breccias 

 of Gibraltar, preserved in the museum of Adrien Camper. 



The relations of these fossils to the Siberian genus La- 

 gomys were more definitely pointed out by Wagner in 

 Kastner's ' Archiv fur Naturgeschichte,' torn. iv. 



The fossil from Kent's Hole consists of the facial or 

 maxillary part of the skull of a full-grown individual, with 

 the molar and incisive teeth in situ on one side, demon- 

 strating the longitudinal furrow on the large anterior chisel- 

 shaped incisor, (fig. 82,) and the small posterior supple- 

 mentary incisors, (i, fig. 83,) which the genus Lagomys has 

 in common with the ordinary Hares and Babbits. 



The dentition of the small Siberian tail-less Hares 

 closely resembles that in the true genus Lepus, in the form 

 of the teeth, and differs principally in the absence of the 

 small molar tooth which terminates the series posteriorly 



* Ossemens Fossiles, torn. iv. pp. 174, 178. 



