LEPORID^— SPECIES WRONGLY ATTRIBUTED TO X. AMERICA. 309 



SPECIES WKONGLY ATTRiniTTED TO AMERICA. 



Ill 1837, Dr. J. E. Gray* described a Lepus longkaudatits from a speci- 

 men supposed to have been brouglit from " Magellan Land " hy Capt. P. P. 

 King. Tliis specimen was redescribed under the same name by Dr. Each- 

 man f in 1839, who says: "The specimen from which I have made the 

 above description [of i. longicaudatus] is the original one from wiiich Mr. 

 Gray established the characters of this species. It was obtained by Doug- 

 lass on his last visit to tiie southwestern coast of North America, and was 

 sent to England after his melancholy death. The precise locality is not 

 known, but is supposed to be in the northwestern part of Texas." \Vagner,J 

 in 1844, also gave a descri])tion of a "Lepus longicauclatus Bachman", com- 

 piled from the preceding authors, and the name also figures later in the works 

 of several compilers. Waterhouse, || in 1848, speaks of it as a purely nominal 

 species, and says it was based on "a specimen in the museum of the Zoological 

 Society, from which the label had become detached and lost", and which "was 

 surmised to be a native of this part [California] of America, as it was like- 

 wise of the southernmost part of South America". lie adds that the spcc'- 

 men "proves to be a South African animal, being, without doubt, the L.sax- 

 aliiui", Gray§ later also cites his L. longicaudatus among his synonyms of 

 L. saxatilis, but at the same time retains it as a doubtful species from 

 "Magellan's Straits"! 



A species was described by Lesson, H in 1826, as Lepus magellanicus, 

 from specimens from the Falkland Islands, which proved, as stated above, 

 to be merely the common Lepus cunkulus in a feral state. 



NOTE ON THE NAMES "KABUIT" AND " HARE." 



"What is a 'Rabbit' as distinguished from a ' Hare' T' or conversely, is a 

 question one often hears in re'^+ion to our American species of Lejwridte, 

 and one deserving of a mon tention, since many suppose these names 



to have a definite applicatioi ich, indeed, was originally the case, JTaie 



being a generic name and Rabbit the distinctive name of a particular species 

 of Hare. Thus, in England, Rabbit is the distinctive English name of (he 



• Chnrleswortli's Ma(?. Nat. Hist., vol. i, p. 086, laiT. 

 t Jonrn. Acad. Nat. Stl. Pliila., vol. vlli, p. 84, 1839. 

 ( Scbrcber's SSugotli., Suppl., vol. iv, p. 110, 1H44. 

 1 Nnt. Hist. Mam., vol. ii, p. 138, 1818. 

 i Kuu. and Mng. Nat. HlHt,, 3d e-r., vol. xx, p. ^Xa, 1SC7. 

 H Bu:<. do5 8ci. Nat., viii, U6. 

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