114 A NEW SPECIES OF HARE. 
erossed over the Wind River Mountains into the valley of 
the Columbia River. 'The writer was connected with that 
expedition as Geologist and Naturalist. May 30th, we 
camped at the foot of the eastern slope of the mountains, at 
the source of Wind River. It was a beautiful locality, and 
at this time the spring had fully come. Myriads of flowers 
covered the valley, and the trees and shrubs were clothed 
with foliage of the peculiar bright green color character- 
istic of this mountain scenery. On the north side of this 
valley were the rugged basaltic ridges of the western end of 
the Big Horn Range, where it united itself with the Wind 
River Range, and on our left were the forest-covered, gently 
descending slopes of the Wind River Range. Fine springs 
issued from the sides of the mountains everywhere, and all 
the little branches were full of trout. ij 
On the morning of May 31st, we ascended the eastern 
slope, and gradually the vegetation dwindled down in size, 
so that it presented an Alpine character, and before reaching 
the summit, we were pushing our way through ten or fifteen 
feet of snow. Upon the summits of these mountains quite 
large areas are’ covered with perpetual snow, portions of 
whieh melt away in midsummer. Every few moments the 
clouds dropped down rain or snow, and then the sun shone 
out as bright as ever. We were obliged to spend several 
days on the summit of these mountains. So far as I could as- 
certain the fauna on the west side of the Wind River Moun- 
tains is quite distinet from that on the eastern side. One 
day I noticed a group of singular tracks on the snow which 
seemed different from any I had ever observed in the West, 
and they appeared to belong to an enormous species of hare. 
Descending the western slope about a third of the way from 
the summit, we saw a number of these animals in the little 
patches of pine forests, and succeeded in capturing several of 
them, old and young. I saw at once that it was a species not 
previously observed by me, and most probably undescribed. 
The following is a brief description of this hare : : 
LI 




