1911] Taylor: Mammals of the 1909 Nevada Expedition. 289 



brighter rufous than pinetis. None of our specimens have this 

 color as intensified as it is in two available specimens of pinetis 

 in winter pelage from IMancos and Glenwood Springs, Colorado. 

 The more modified color may be due in part to wear in the case 

 of the Nevada specimens, but it cannot be entirely accounted for 

 on this ground. They are lighter dorsally than the individuals 

 of pinetis just mentioned, very probably approximating grangeri. 

 A great difference in pelage is noticeable with respect to thick- 

 ness of hair. The different stage in which the series are found 

 must be taken into consideration, the two examples of pinetis 

 exhibiting the winter coat, and our Nevada specimens the breed- 

 ing pelage. 



A few points may be noted wherein our specimens vary from 

 the description of nuttalli given by Nelson (1909, p. 201). 

 The ears are not definitely edged with black anteriorly except in 

 one young male (no. 8290). Instead, a rather indistinct stripe 

 of ])r(^wn, a little lighter than seal brown, is present in nearly all 

 of the specimens along the distal two-thirds of the front ear 

 margin. In another male, an adult (no. 8263) the stripe becomes 

 a still lighter brown. Juvenals of our series are somewhat 

 darker than the adults. As previously remarked, too, the Nevada 

 animals are distinctly different from nuttalli from northeastern 

 California in general coloration dorsally, being paler and having 

 more of a rufous admixture than a chestnut, as in the IModoe 

 County, California, specimens of S. n. nuttalli. 



Our Sylvilagus, as would be expected from Nelson 's assertion 

 (1909, p. 203) that "it is interesting to note that typical S. 

 nuttalli has a distribution nearly coincident with that of Lepus 

 calif oynicus wall a walla," presents a problem exactly analogous 

 to that of the series of jack rabbits secured by the Nevada Expedi- 

 tion (see below). The localities in which collecting was carried 

 on lie on the line, in both cases, between two closely related and 

 intergrading subspecies, and it could hardly be expected that 

 either of our series would present the typical characters of either 

 one. Whereas, however, the jack rabbit seems to incline definitely 

 toward the subspecies inhabiting eastern Oregon rather than 

 toward that found in eastern and southern Nevada, the reverse 

 is true of the cottontail. 



