28 
LEPORID.E. 
uniform reddish-brown colour on the back and sides.” I have already 
shown, however, that it is subject to considerable variation in this re- 
spect, and I have now to add the following memoranda on the same sub- 
ject:— 
Mr. It. Davis, in a communication dated 9th September, 1837, informed 
me, that on the 4th of April, in that year, a hare, “ of almost a pure 
white colour,” was killed near Mitchelstown. “ The face, under side of 
paws up to knee, and a few very small spots on each side, were of the 
natural colour, and a number of dark grey hairs occurred along the mid- 
dle of the back.” On the 9th Feb., 1842, the same gentleman, writing 
from Clonmel, added, “ I got this day a hare with the lower half of the 
back, and a patch between the ears, white, and the other parts of a much 
lighter colour than ordinary. Hares seem subject to much variety of 
colour.” During the second week of February, 1842, I saw about half a 
dozen hares from Shane’s Castle-Park (County Antrim), which were partly 
white, especially the hinder portions, and about the head and ears. 
Diehard Chute, Esq., of Blennerville (County Kerry), remarked, in 
notes which he supplied to me some years ago, that he had, during one 
winter (about 1842) observed a great number of white hares in that 
county, owing, as he supposed, to the severity of the season. He had 
remarked them to be much whiter in some years than others, as, indeed, 
I have myself done. This does not accord with my theory, that the 
whiteness is assumed with age. 
About the middle of January, 1845, Edmund M‘Donnell, Esq., of 
Glenarm Castle (County Antrim), presented to the Belfast Museum, in a 
fresh state, the whitest Irish hare I have ever seen — even whiter than a 
winter Alpine one obtained in the same season. It was killed on his 
grounds. Mr. M‘Donnell stated that this hare had been for some time 
known to the people of the district in which it lived, and that they had 
abstained from injuring it, not on its own account, but because they con- 
sidered that it would be unlucky to do so. 
On 8th March, in the same year (1845), J. Crichton, Lord Doden’s 
gamekeeper, at Tollymore Park (County Down), gave me the following 
information “ We have a great number of white hares on the moun- 
tain ; some of them snow-white.” 
In December, 1847, Mr. G. C. Hyndman saw a white hare at Masse- 
reene deer-park (County Antrim). He Avas informed, in reply to his in- 
quiries, that it had been first observed during the previous winter, and 
had assumed in spring the ordinary brown colour, though of a rather 
lighter shade, so as to individualize it amongst others. It frequented the 
same place, and its identity was, therefore, unquestioned. 
A hare which was entirely of a sooty black colour w'as seen by Mr. J. 
R. Garrett, in the shop of Mr. Glennon, taxidernist, Dublin, in January, 
1850. It had been recently sent from the County of Kildare to be pre- 
served. 
Fleming and Bell have described the lips of the Alpine hare of Scot- 
land as being always- black. My own observations, however, accord more 
closely with those of Mr. Macgillivray, viz. — “lips and chin brownish- 
white.” 
Rutty, who published his Natural History of the County of Dublin in 
1772, was aware of the difference in quality between the furs of the 
English and Irish hares. In vol. i. p. 280 of that work, he says : — 
“ Lepus — The Hare . — The finer and under part of the hair, next to the skin, 
is used in making hats, being mixed Avith rabbits’ hair, and the wool of vigogne. 
