159 



most dogs. Its powerful hind legs and strong doreal muscles enable it to 

 take leaps of ten to fifteen feet. It hops along when feeding, a foot or 

 two at a time. The position of the feet in running is peculiar; the fore 

 feet strike the surface near each other ; the hind feet are widely separated 

 and come to the earth some distance in front of the fore feet; the fore 

 feet touch the ground but lightly ; they are at once raised, and the bound 

 is repeated with the hind legs only. The impression, at first sight of the 

 track in the snow, is that the animal has been running backwards. In 

 making the longest leaps, the front feet come down in the same line, and 

 at some distance behind the back feet. 



In winter I have seen them burrowing in the deep snow in the same 

 drifts with the Prairie Hen, and for the same reason, to get shelter from 

 an unusually severe storm. The Wild Rabbit is not naturally, however, a 

 burrowing animal, as is the European Rabbit, often domesticated in the 

 country. 



As to the common name. Rabbit, so often given to the present species, 

 it is not properly applicable to any of the American Hares. Lepm 

 cuniculus, the Burrowing Rabbit of Europe, is the Rabbit proper, differing 

 from other Old World and from American forms in the shortness of its 

 hind legs. Hare is the proper generic or family name, Rabbit originally 

 being the distinctive name of the particular species cuniculus, the Rabbit 

 of Europe. But the two terms have now come to be interchangeable in 

 this country, and, "however pbiloiogically or technically wrong it may 

 be to apply the term Rabbit to any of our wild species, the custom of 

 doing so among the generality of our people, is doubtless as ineradicably 

 fixed as is that of calling the American Bison a Buffalo." (Allen.) 



Lepus americanus Erxleben. 



Var, virginiamte Allen. 



SouTiiEKN Vauying Hake. 



1825. Lcpus virginianus, Harlan, Fn. Am., 1825, 196. — Fischer, Syn., 1829, 

 376.— Doughty, Cab. Nat. Hist., i, 1830, 217, pi. xix.— Bachman, 

 Journ. Acad. Nat. Sci., Phila., vii, 1837, 301 (mainly; somewhat 

 mixed with L. campestris). — ^Emmons, Quad. Mass , 1840, 68. — • 

 Thompson, Nat. Hist. Vermont, 1842, 48. 



1337. Lepus americanus, Bachman, Journ. Acad. Nat. Sci., Phila., vii, 

 1837, 403-.; viii, 1839, 76 (in part only).— DeKay, N. Y. Zool , i, 

 1842, 95, pi. xxvi, fig. 2 (in part only). — Wagner, Suppl. Schreb. 

 Saug., 1844, iv, 104 (in part only).— Aud. & Bach., Q. N. A., i, 

 1849, 73, pi. xi, xii (in part only).— Baird, M. N. A„ 1857, 579 

 (in part on'v). — Crr.y, Ann, and Ma^;. Nn+, H's* . Sd prr., xx, 



