.) I 6 On the Hispid Hare of the Saul fart »t . \ Junk, 



forest Hare possesses greater strength and solidity with proportional 

 augmentation of the teeth, but especially of the incisors. The skull is 

 rather higher but scarcely so long as in the red-tail. It is also less 

 curved along the culmenal line : the nasal bones are shorter yet more 

 advanced to the front : the solutions of continuity in the bone of the 

 cheeks and palate are smaller ; the alee of the frontals less developed, 

 and the frontals consequently not sunk between them as in the common 

 Hare and Rabbit ; lastly, the groove in front of the upper incisors is* 

 continued to their cutting edge so as to notch it. But with all these 

 minute diversities there is a remarkably perfect conformity to one model 

 of conformation even in minutiae. So too in the internal viscera of the 

 two species, though here the disparity appears somewhat greater and 

 more material, for the intestinal canal of Hispidus is much shorter, the 

 difference being, however, compensated in the greater size of the ccecum 

 and of that portion of the intestine which resembles the ccecum. The 

 stomach also exhibits a greater tumidity and thickening near the pylo- 

 ric orifice, where there is less of these features, or, instead of them, 

 merely a syphonic bend, in the red-tail and rabbit. The particulars of 

 the viscera are set down in the sequel in figures, and I have only further 

 to remark that the bicornate uterus, which in my specimen was unim- 

 pregnated — has precisely the character of the same organ in the red- 

 tail ; and that the diversity of the other viscera is the less important 

 in as much as several individuals of the same species are apt to show 

 much inequality in this respect, as I have proof before me in regard to 

 the common Hare and Rabbit. With reference to the nature and colours 

 of the fur in the common and forest species, how striking soever the 

 differences at first sight appear, they diminish on closer inspection, for 

 the structure of the hair is exactly the same in both, only with greater 

 thickness and consequent strength in Hispidus ; and the hues and 

 their distribution into rings are surprisingly alike, with these differences 

 merely that the rufous tints are deeper toned or browner ; and that the 

 dark shading is deeper and fuller, in Hispidus, owing chiefly to the 

 greater abundance of the longer and wholly dark portion of the hairy 

 piles, I have examined the hair and fur, both as to form and colours, 

 with great care ; and the above is the result. The general effect may 

 be said to be that the Hispid Hare, as to colour, is of a dark or iron- 

 grey with the ruddy-tinge embrowned, and the limbs shaded outside, 

 like the body, with black, instead of being unmixed rufous. 



