5 72 Th e Hisp id Hare of th e Sa u I fores t. [June, 



distinct, and therefore for establishing his " Ovis Ammonoides" The 

 point can only be determined by those who may have the opportunity 

 of comparing specimens of both. 



On the Hispid Hare of the Saul forest. — By B. H. Hodgson, Esq. 



Lepus hispidus. Pearson. 



Caprolagus hispidus. Blyth. 



Habitat, The great forest at the base of the Sub-Hima- 

 layas and of their offsets, from Gorakpur to Tipperah. 



Having been recently so fortunate as to obtain a fine living pair of 

 the Hispid Hare of the Saul forest, together with some trustworthy 

 information about the habits and location of the species, I purpose to 

 give the results of my examination and inquiries to the Society, the 

 animal being extremely rare, and moreover being one of those species 

 the right understanding of which, in relation to it's congeners, is calcu- 

 lated to throw light upon the difficult question of the true nature and 

 limits of generic aggregations. 



The sub-Himalayas and that portion of their south-eastern continua- 

 tion dividing the basins of the Irawadi and of the lower Brahmaputra, 

 are accompanied all the way from the point where the Ganges intersects 

 them to the sea, by a vast forest which forms their skirt towards the 

 plains of Hindostan and Bengal. This forest, which is one of the largest 

 and most unbroken in the world, having a breadth or depth of from 1 

 to 20 and even 30 miles throughout its extended course of some 1500 

 miles, and being inhabited only in spots here and there, is one of the 

 most important features of the Geography of India for the zoologist, 

 owing to the number of animals that are now peculiar to it, because 

 they have found probably in its immense malarious recesses a last refuge 

 from the gradual encroachments of man. Swainson observes that there 

 are no forests or tenants of the forest like those of the new world : but 

 those who have followed the Gaur and Elephant, the Arna and Rhino- 

 ceros, the Samber and Barasinga though the ' Saul forest' as above 

 defined, have felt little disposition to acquiesce in that remark. The 

 popular designation of Saul forest is derived from the prevalence of that 



