LEPUS 2X7 



characters of the two animals, both external and internal, have 

 become known with so much greater precision that a reputed 

 hybrid receives a more satisfactory examination than was pos- 

 sible until quite recent years. But at the best it must be 

 confessed that such specimens, as might be expected, are 

 extremely like one or other of their parents, and are conse- 

 quently difficult to distinguish. Nevertheless, sceptical as the 

 scientific mind has undoubtedly been in ' the past, the general 

 attitude must be regarded as having recently undergone con- 

 siderable change, and has now become one of acquiescence. 

 The frequent introductions by sportsmen of one or other species 

 of hare into the territories of the other (for details of which 

 see the articles on the species), with the repeated assertions of 

 competent field naturalists like the late John Cordeaux that 

 such interbreeding occurs (see Cordeaux, Ine/el, 23rd September 

 1876, 362 ; McNichol and Colquhoun, Ine/d, yth October 1876, 

 434; Lumsden, Zoologist, 1877, loi ; Harting, Proc. Linn. 

 Soc, London, 1897, 4, and Fie/d, 6th May 1905, 762), and 

 finally, the statement by Lonnberg that in southern Sweden, 

 owing to the introduction of the Brown Hare for sporting 

 purposes, hybrids have become comparatively common, have 

 all largely influenced the change. Such hybrids have also 

 been reported from other European countries, as from Russia 

 by Middendorff, from Switzerland, and from Livonia (see Lonn- 

 berg, Proc. Zoo/. Soc, London, i8th April 1905, 278-87). It 

 is certain that, although the Blue Hare as a species retreats 

 before its larger relative, there is no active antagonism between 

 the individuals of either. Where their ranges overlap the two 

 meet naturally and interbreed, and Millais (iii., 24 ; also Field, 

 1 8th February 191 1, 330) has killed an equal number of both 

 species in a day's shooting at Murthly, Perthshire, and has 

 often seen them rise from their forms close to one another. 

 According to Millais, after severe winters in Perthshire, 

 such as occurred in 1865, 1881, and 1894, large numbers of 

 Mountain Hares descended to the low moors, and to the mOor- 

 woods bordering the rivers Tay and Earn, where they stayed on 

 through several summers until they either were shot or wandered 

 back to their proper habitat. During these visitations they 

 mixed indiscriminately with the Brown Hares, and undoubtedly 



VOL. II. Q 2 



