THE COMMON OR BROWN HARE 251 



1857. Lepus TIMIDUS, b. mitteleuropaische form, J. H. Blasius, Sdugethiere Deutsch- 



lands, 417 (part). 

 1898. Lepus EUROPiEUS occidentalis (sub-species), W. E. de Winton, Ann. and 



Mag. Nat. Hist., February, 152 ; described from Herefordshire, England (type No. 



9B.2.17.1 of British Museum Collection) ; Hilzheimer, Zool. Anzeiger, xxx., 512, 



14th August 1906 ; Trouessart (1910). 



Le Lilvre of the French ; der Hase of the Germans. 



The synonymy and history given here is mainly that of the British 

 Brown Hare, L. europceus occidentalis, a recognisable sub-species first 

 differentiated by de Winton in 1 898. That of the species as a whole 

 and of the other sub-species will be found in works on European 

 mammals, and is in all cases quite simple, since, under the rules of 

 priority, there can be no doubt about the correct names for the Brown 

 and Blue Hares. Yet there has been much confusion in the past, 

 owing to causes similar to those surrounding the synonymy of the 

 bats and shrews. The Hare to which Linnaeus applied the name 

 timidus is not the common hare of Europe ; but this fact was not 

 at first understood, so that this name was widely applied to the 

 present as being much the better known species. After the discovery 

 of the identity of the true timidus, some naturalists retained that name 

 for the Brown, and adopted Pallas's name variabilis for the Blue Hare. 

 This course is still followed by a few zoologists, especially biologists 

 and those working on extinct forms ; but the majority of authoritative 

 systematic writers have now, although not without protest, agreed to 

 adopt the next available name, viz., Pallas's europceus, for the Brown 

 Hare, leaving the Blue Hare to be Lepus timidus, as originally intended 

 by Linnajus. The names of other sub-species will be found under 

 Geographical variation. 



Sex names: — Jack, or buck; jill (and gill), or doe. 



Terminology ;! — The word hare appears in Middle English, as in 

 Chaucer. The Anglo-Saxon form is hara, the Swedish and Danish 

 hare, and the Icelandic heri (for an original here\ But in the Dutch, 

 Middle Dutch, and Old High German forms, the original " s " is retained 

 in place of the " r," from a Teutonic stem, hason. On the other hand, the 

 Welsh ceinach = "B. hare," is believed to be certainly connected with 

 sasnis = " a hare " — one of the very few words of Old Prussian (Slavonic 

 dialect) which have been preserved. This appears in Sanskrit as gaga (for 

 an original gasa), a word which was assimilated by popular etymology 

 in Sanskrit with gag, to jump ; but the real meaning of the original 

 Sanskrit form was certainly " grey." The original signification of hare 

 is thus shown to be the " grey animal " ; with which compare grey, a 

 name of the Badger. Thus the Anglo-Saxon words hasu = " grey -brown," 

 and hara = " a hare," are directly connected. 



* Without reference to species. 



