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290 



MOKOGRAPHS OF KORTH AMERICAN KODENTIA. 



by no means very tangible, consisting mainly in slight differences in the color 

 of the summer pelage, the American form being rather darker and less 

 fulvous. The ears also appear to be rather longer. The specimens before 

 me arc too few to render it safe to predicate that these differences are con- 

 stant and distinctive ; but as they accord with the general law of the darker 

 tints of the closely-allied American representatives of European forms, the 

 L. " g/acialis" of authors may be provisionally regarded as a varietal form of 

 L. timidus* 



As is the case in tiie Ermines and other animals that assume a white 

 livery in winter, the change is more complete in the extreme northern repre- 

 sentatives of the species than in the extreme southern ones. In Newfound- 

 land, Ireland.t the Scottish Highlands, and in Southern Scandinavia, the 

 change is often incomplete. Although authors almost universally describe 

 the winter pelage as white to the base, it is well known that the Lepus /liber- 

 nicuH Bell was based on specimens from Ireland that remained brown in 

 winter, and Nilsson's variety canescem (L. variabilis var. canescens Nilss.) of 

 Sweden was based merely on southern specimens, in which the change to 

 white in winter is only partial. In the Scottish and Scandinavian specimens 

 before me, I observe the following stages of gradation in respect to the 

 winter pelage. In only one or two is the whiteness of the under fur of that 

 snowy purity seen in the specimens from Greenland, Labrador, and 

 Arctic America, there being in nearly all a faint shade of brown. In some, 

 it is so pale as to be scarcely appreciable ; in others, quite strong. In the 

 latter, a few black hairs are intermixed in the dorsal surface, which in some 

 cases form quite a strongly-marked grayish area on the middle of the back. 

 The specimens alluded to above vary as follows : — 



No. 1737 (Coll. M. C. Z.), Sweden. — Pelage pure white to its base; 

 front of ears pale grayish-brown. 



No. 1776 (M. C. Z.), Sweden. — White, with a slight mixture of long 

 black hairs on the back, and a faint brownish tinge below the surface; front 

 of ears reddish-brown. 



No. 1777 (M. C. Z), Sweden. — A few black hairs in tiie dorsal surface, 

 most numerous on the middle of the back, where they form a large grayish 



* A8 shown by tUu above-cited synouyinB, the name timidut of LiuuoiUB has priority over variaWii 

 of Piillas. 



t " The Irish Hare only occasionally becomes white in winter".— (Watkhhouse, Nat. Hist. Ham., 

 ii.64.) 



